


capax infiniti

by sannlykke



Series: SASO 2017 [8]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Office, Alternate Universe - Shinigami, Alternate Universe - Stardust Fusion, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Alternate Universe - Toy Story Fusion, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Meetings, Fluff and Crack, Homesickness, M/M, Multi, Musicians, POV Second Person, Psychological Horror, Sharing a Bed, Sirens, Summer, YouTube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-11-16 19:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 19,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11259696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sannlykke/pseuds/sannlykke
Summary: a collection of SASO 2017 bonus round fills, to be updated periodically after each round ends.new fills for BR5, 6 and 7: nijihimu x3, garciraki, mayuniji, nijiakamayu, midorima & kagami & himuro, aohimu





	1. equinox (kagahimu, mystical beasts)

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully i got most of the tags but if not, i will be linking each prompt back to dreamwidth and you may see if there are any other relevant tags there!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and with spring, a special guest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR1) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=9904658#cmt9904658): xianxia/fantasy AU where both of them are mystical beasts who are finally able to transform into human form

The steady drip of water outside his window is what wakes Taiga. It’s been a long time since he’s heard that sound—this winter has been too long, too harsh. Now, as he stretches his limbs—human limbs, he still reminds himself from time to time, fresh and strong and ready to be used—he should get out of bed and see that spring has come with his own eyes.  
  
And with spring, a special guest.  
  
There are four of them, four beings that span the heavenly coordinations, but Taiga had always been closest to Tatsuya, his counterpart, the east to his west. Though Tatsuya’s time has always been the spring, sometimes Taiga sees him more as winter—from the coolness of his scales and the chill that comes over his face when he is angry, to his name. But perhaps it is such great cold that gives him the ability for equal warmth in a time of new beginnings.  
  
Taiga’s own time is autumn, when the leaves turn golden and the air is crisp, when the birds fly south to roost and prepare for the coming winter. And it was last autumn that he had finally managed to perfect the transformation that would let him walk the mortal world without attracting notice, well—supernatural notice, at least. There is no changing the how tall he looks in this form, or the scowl on his face that so easily scares away people he’d been meaning to impress. Perhaps there’s always some lingering facade of the tiger in him even when he walks on two feet, and it would be the same for the rest of his peers.  
  
But all of that pales in front of the fact that he can now reach up out the window and pluck a cherry blossom from the wizened tree growing outside, watching its petals open and close in his fingers. Taiga smiles, closing his palm; he could smell something different in the wind already.  
  
The stream outside his house is running freely, flowing through the heart of the village where he’s stayed all winter. People are nice to him here, and he tries his best to help them back, though it’s not a place to stay long in—in due time he’ll leave again, wander the land, until he is satisfied with the battles he can fight and the lessons he can learn.  
  
Which is to say Taiga has no idea how long he will be here. His footsteps crunch through dewy grass and pebbles towards the stream to bring in water for washing and breakfast; it’s too early in the year for inquisitive insects, something he gives thanks for. In his other form the insects don’t bother him, being unable to get through his thick coat of fur, but humans are a different matter.  
  
When he stands up again he realizes it is very still, the birdcalls having ceased sometime during his washing. Taiga turns around with the pail clutched firmly in his hand, but in the next moment he drops it entirely.  
  
“Tatsuya?”  
  
“I said I’d be here on the first day of spring, didn’t I?”  
  
It is the first time Taiga has seen his human form, but it is unmistakably Tatsuya from his aura and demeanor—black hair falling over one eye, framing his face perfectly, a beauty mark under his other eye. His robes shimmer as he approaches, scalelike, and he’s wearing a smile that could only come after the deepest of winters.  
  
There’s the same exhaustion in his eyes that Taiga knows all too well—the multiple failures before getting to where he is now, the shadows that lurk at the back of his mind. It’s not something they can get away from, any of them—their commitment to overseeing this world had not been asked of them, after all, but commanded.  
  
But Taiga also remembers well his exhilaration at finally his first glance of himself as he is now in a mirror, and he can see the same reflected in Tatsuya’s eyes.  
  
And it is all he can do to stop himself from tackling Tatsuya to the ground and running his fingers through his silky hair, letting spring take over once more.


	2. look at me (mibunebu, beauty blogger)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mibuchi is a beauty blogger and nebuya is her boyfriend, featuring trans mibuchi and misuse of foundation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR1) [Prompt:](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=9923346&posted=1#cmt10318098) Beauty vlogger AU with Reo and Ei-chan doing one of those "my boyfriend does my makeup" tags.
> 
> [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUMasr3iJLw&t=64s) is a visual for reo's makeup collection.

“Oi, can’t you stop moving?”  
  
“ _I’m_ not the one moving, Ei-chan!” Reo says exasperatedly, throwing up her hands. Eikichi stops massaging her face with the primer and pulls them close. “What?”  
  
“I just wanted to see if I missed anywhere,” Eikichi mutters, inspecting her face with about as much intensity as when he’s focused on the ball. “This…primer stuff, it’s clear, so what if I missed a part? Hey, audience, tell me if I missed anything, okay?”  
  
“Oh,” Reo replies, a little softer, and there’s a giggle behind the camera. “Kotarou, stop laughing! I’m gonna have to cut that, you know?”  
  
“Okay, okay…”  
  
Reo turns back to face Eikichi, who’s staring particularly pensively at the bottles in his hands. “Well?”  
  
“Alright,” Eikichi says, taking a deep breath. “So next up is, um, foundation? Conceal…something? Do you put this on before or after or—“  
  
“Whatever you’d like, Ei-chan,” Reo says patiently, watching him fumble with her beauty blender. At least he hadn’t picked one of her Tsubokawa brushes; she’d probably not be able to contain herself if he dropped one of those. “Just make sure to cover up my dark circles. They’re positively _awful_ today, I know you can see them—”  
  
Eikichi peers into her face as he dabs the sponge just a little too hard into the puddle of foundation on the back of his hand, sending splatters everywhere. Reo gasps, wrenching away her bathrobe from the carnage. “Ei-chan!”  
  
“Sorry, ah—I didn’t know this was so watery!”  
  
“It says _Water Blend_ on the bottle,” Reo points out, but really, there’s no saving her clothes at this point. She’ll just have to change later. Kotarou's giggling is drowned out by Eikichi's swearing and the clatter of bottles on her vanity as he rearranges them again, carefully. There’s something to be said about how adorable he looks even in this situation, Reo thinks—she’d caught him staring at her collection the day before as if in a concentrated effort to memorize where everything goes.  
  
“Your lights are too bright,” Eikichi replies, but he doesn’t argue further as he squints and places the beauty blender on Reo’s face. The foundation feels cool against her face, a welcome distraction from the heat of the multiple ring lights glaring down on them. It really _is_ getting hot in here; maybe she should make Kotarou turn down the AC. “Like this?”  
  
“Yes, like that.”  
  
Eikichi starts bouncing the sponge along the side of her cheeks; with her face angled this way, Reo can’t see what’s happening in the camera viewfinder, but it _does_ feel pleasant. Eikichi can be surprisingly gentle when it comes down to it, though this feels entirely different from when she does her own face. She closes her eyes as she feels his fingers come near her eyes. “Be careful you don’t get my eyebrows.”  
  
“Do you have a smaller sponge or something?”  
  
“I don’t think you can _hold_ a smaller sponge, Ei-chan.”  
  
Eikichi leans away, looking down at the back of his hand, then back at Reo’s face. “Ah, that’s about right.”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Um, Reo-nee,” Kotarou says, poking his head out from behind the camera, “I think you should look in the mirror.”  
  
“I’m sure it’s not that—“ She reaches out for the embossed Tarte mirror laying on her desk and holds it up to her face. What meets her is nothing short of horrifying. “Why do I look like a _ghost_?”  
  
“Aren’t you like, the palest shade—“  
  
Kotarou snickers. “It looks pretty well-blended though, I gotta say.”  
  
Then Reo sees the bottle on the vanity, its cap halfway unscrewed. “Oh, Ei-chan, you put a _white mixer_ on my face!”


	3. inspirational (mayuaka, composer au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you know what’s most important in composing, Chihiro?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR1) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=10291474#cmt10291474): Akashi is a brilliant young composer. Most people don't know that the inspiration for all his best pieces is Mayuzumi.
> 
> warnings: there is **nudity** and **alcohol consumption** in this chapter

If asked, Chihiro would say he rarely notices the music playing in the background when he’s inside cafes. Usually it’s some sort of light jazz, pop music, that kind of thing. As long as it doesn’t affect him tapping away at his laptop, he doesn’t care. The customers themselves make a whole lot more noise, he’s found.  
  
Today he’s at his usual place, a growing headache exacerbated by the fact that nothing is coming to him. No inspiration, none whatsoever. Not even the soothing classical music playing over the radio on the table next to him is helping. That is, until he hears a few strains of music that sound deceptively familiar.  
  
 _“And now we have the newest violin concerto composed by Akashi Seijuurou, who’s recently won a prize…”  
  
“—only twenty-five and already world-famous for his elegant, thoughtful compositions, this piece was performed in Milan—“_  
  
The host of the channel dives into another monotonous, speculative story, but this time Chihiro listens intently to the music in the background, feeling his surroundings slip away. The music is familiar, only because Akashi had played it for _him_ , the first time around.  
  
  
  
  
“Do you know what’s most important in composing, Chihiro?”  
  
“Why would you ask me that when you know I don’t?” He retorts, lounging on Akashi’s expensive leather couch in his study. Akashi had been fiddling with his violin on the other side of the room—a room probably twice the size of Chihiro’s little studio apartment. Chihiro doesn’t know music at all; how to appreciate it, maybe, but even his taste is probably dubious at best in Akashi’s eyes.   
  
Not that it’s stopped Akashi from saving him a VIP seat every time he holds a concert. Though this view, Chihiro thinks, is better than any. Akashi’s choice of casualwear is too done up for most, a dark navy polo and and dress pants, but it fits his body nicely. Chihiro, for his part, is wearing nothing at all.  
  
“It’s not so different from writing,” Akashi replies, looking up. Even after all these years of them being together Chihiro feels his cheeks color at where Akashi’s gaze is settling on. “You need a muse, first and foremost.”  
  
“Draw me like one of your French girls, huh?” Chihiro retorts, stretching out his limbs. Akashi laughs quietly, a soft melodious sound that leaves a pleasant buzz in Chihiro’s ears. Maybe he’s had a little too much champagne earlier; then again, so had Akashi. “Did you compose all of your pieces with me standing butt naked in front of you? I mean, I’m pretty sure I’d remember _that_.”  
  
“As it were, that would become extremely distracting very fast. This is just an experiment.”  
  
Akashi tests the sound—once, twice, and then notes something down on the pages. Chihiro watches him with pursed lips, digging his heels into the sofa, hoping his nails would leave white scars across its dark fabric. “An experiment.”  
  
“In the same way you wrote your protagonist in your last novel,” Akashi says, smiling faintly. “As I recall—“  
  
“I know what I wrote,” Chihiro says, burying his face deeper into the couch. His latest novel had featured a musically-talented protagonist whose playing could hypnotize all those who listened, save one mysterious girl who kept appearing in his audience and vanishing by the time the performance ended. It had sold out quickly, but he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that Akashi’d had something to do with it. “Should I be honored my dick inspires world-famous compositions?”  
  
Akashi hums, but his eyes sparkle dangerously as he places the bow to his instrument. Suddenly Chihiro feels a wave of impending doom settle across his body, and sits upright just as Akashi takes a step back to look at the sheet music. “Whatever makes you sleep at night, Chihiro.”  
  
  
  
  
 _“—like a reluctant lover being called to bed,”_ the host concludes as the final notes play out. _“Languid and unrepentant, but ultimately leaving a lasting impression.”_  
  
 _“What a wonderful analysis,”_ his companion exclaims, _“Don’t you think he could’ve only composed this from a personal experience? Imagine being wooed by such an outstanding person, but to ignore him at first—“_  
  
“It does makes for an interesting story, doesn’t it?”  
  
“Sure does,” Chihiro mutters to himself as he watches his screen come to life again. The barista is already fiddling with the radio, tuning it to another station. But by this point Chihiro is already writing again, the music echoing in his head telling him where to go.


	4. dat ass (nijiaka, office au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> akashi summons nijimura to his office for some repair work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR1) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=9627922#cmt9627922): nijimura works in akashi corp's it department. akashi's computer doesn't work.
> 
> warnings: **implied sexual content**

“Hey, Nijimura.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Boss wants to see you.”  
  
Shuuzou jerks his head up to stare at Aomine, whose face suggests he wants to be here as much as Shuuzou wants to hear what he has to say. “Why?”  
  
Aomine shrugs, taking a gulp out of his mug. “How would I know? You’ve been caught downloading porn or something?”   
  
“That’s what you’d do,” Shuuzou says in disgust. The guy in the next cubicle looks up, frowning, and he wants to curse. There’s about a dozen people in his department, and he isn’t even the head or anything—why’d Akashi want _him?_  
  
“Whatever,” Aomine says, yawning as he turns away. “You’d better get going before he gets mad.”  
  
-  
  
“Nijimura-san,” Akashi says, a slight frown on his face. That expression isn’t because of Shuuzou being there, but a result of the blank screen of his work desktop. “This has never happened before.”  
  
“Well,” Shuuzou says, rolling up his sleeves as he bends down to inspect the screen. None of the lights are on. “Was it working fine last night? Running slowly or anything?”  
  
“It was fine yesterday.”  
  
“Hm.”  
  
He feels Akashi come to stand next to him as he kneels down and crawls into the space underneath the desk. It’s very neat, as expected—the wires are taped neatly to the ground, or to the desk, and he sees a pair of slippers on the side. Shuuzou inches in closer. It’s plugged in and the switch on the right mode—the thought of Akashi’s face if he were to crawl out and say _hey, uh, you just forgot to turn it on_ flashes through his mind briefly, but he’s glad he won’t have to die that way today. If he could actually find out what’s wrong.  
  
( _What if Akashi had been downloading porn_ —he shakes that thought out of his head. Damn Aomine.)  
  
“I tried turning it on and off a few times,” Akashi is saying, as if reading his mind. “Everything else in the room works, the lights and telephone. Isn’t that weird, Nijimura-san?”  
  
“That is weird,” Shuuzou agrees. He runs his fingers along the edges; there’s no heat there whatsoever. Maybe he’d have to take this apart—or ask someone else to, because he still has no idea why Akashi would ask him to come up if Akashi _knows_ Aomine is better at looking at hardware. “Well, I can’t figure out what’s wrong, I’m sorry. I can go get someone—”  
  
Akashi coughs politely behind him. “I don’t think there’s a need for that.”  
  
Nijimura blinks and crawls out from the enclosed space, dusting himself off before turning to Akashi. “You mean you want to use one of the spa—“  
  
“Nijimura-san,” Akashi says, enunciating every syllable clearly as if he were speaking at a conference instead of standing with his button-down shirt half-open in the middle of his office, “I’m sure the problem will fix itself sooner or later.”  
  
“Akashi,” Shuuzou says finally, exasperation tinging his voice, but Akashi’s hand is already on his belt. It’s way too early for this, but he doesn’t do anything except let it happen. “You could’ve asked.”  
  
“I did ask.”  
  
“You know what I mean.”  
  
“I apologize then, Nijimura-san,” Akashi murmurs, his face buried in Shuuzou’s chest. “I’ll make it more clear next time. I’m not keeping you from anything important, am I?”  
  
“You’re the most important right now,” Shuuzou says, reaching out to ruffle his hair roughly. It’s not a lie; he feels Akashi’s smile through the fabric of his shirt. “What do I tell them when I go back?”  
  
Akashi looks up, his fingers tracing the buttons on Shuuzou’s shirt, and closes his eyes. “Whatever it is you want.”


	5. formalities (akamido, fake dating)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Not _pretend_ to be my date,” Seijuurou corrects. “You _will_ be my date. You—and I—will pretend to have been in a relationship for some time now. I’ve given vague enough responses to the…source of the problem, that this should be an acceptable cover.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR1) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=10823442#cmt10823442): Akashi is not above faking a relationship to make someone do what he wants.

“Absolutely not,” Shintarou says, crossing his arms. His lucky item for today appears to be a baseball bat—plastic, Seijuurou can tell. It would not do if he were to start threatening violence. “That is preposterous, how could you even—“  
  
“Shintarou.”  
  
“I’m—“ he splutters, releasing his hands. “I’m not saying you’d be a bad…partner, Akashi. Does the status of your relationship matter so much to these people that it’s come down to this?”  
  
“Unfortunately so.”  
  
The problem is, Seijuurou had explained at length, that he’s about to attend a gala in a few weeks’ time, and with those types of events always came _these_ sorts of invitations. Seijuurou had not been planning on taking a date. But one man had pestered him so much over the course of the weekend that he simply could not think of another way to get rid of the unwanted attention (other than murder.)  
  
“You want me to…pretend…to be your…date.”  
  
“Not _pretend_ to be my date,” Seijuurou corrects. “You _will_ be my date. You—and I—will pretend to have been in a relationship for some time now. I’ve given vague enough responses to the…source of the problem, that this should be an acceptable cover.”  
  
Shintarou twitches. The baseball bat is still leaning against the wall, but there is no indication he’s about to pick it up and swing at Seijuurou’s head. A sign as good as any. Finally Shintarou exhales, his face slightly pink, and Seijuurou knows he’s won. “I don’t suppose you’re going to compensate me for this.”  
  
“Whatever do you take me for, Shintarou?” Seijuurou smiles, taking his hand, the one with the bandages. Shintarou doesn’t pull away. “I’ll be sending you your suit tonight.”  
  
-  
  
Now, he could’ve asked someone else to do it. Kise, perhaps, would’ve been an ideal candidate—slightly airheaded, but handsome and charming and semi-famous enough to keep questions away. It would lead to some gossip, he supposes, but he could deal with that. Models are always getting into some kind of gossip or another anyway, and as long as Kise doesn’t blurt out anything incriminating (the major problem, in Seijuurou’s eyes), he would be fine.  
  
But Kise had gone away on a two-week shoot in the Maldives before Seijuurou could ask, and well.  
  
Shintarou is smart, and despite the obvious social awkwardness he is from a good family, and would probably not feel out of place in a formal situation. And, well, Shintarou is also not bad to look at.  
  
He’s very nice to look at, Seijuurou decides as his chauffeur pulls up to Shintarou’s driveway. Even in the dimming sunlight he could see just how good he looks in the clothes Seijuurou had sent. Shintarou stands outside the limo, looking around hesitantly, then ducks inside.  
  
“Do I want to ask how you got my measurements,” is the first thing he says after settling in. Seijuurou can see he’s carrying a teddy bear—the lucky item of the day, he supposes. Better than a baseball bat (though if things got to that point, there is no telling what will happen.)  
  
“Satsuki is as good as ever as wrangling information from her sources,” Seijuurou says, allowing him this one piece of information. Shintarou, for his part, looks slightly horrified.  
  
“It’s been _six years_ since we’ve graduated.”  
  
“And yet here you are,” Seijuurou says wryly, patting down a wrinkle on Shintarou’s pants; he instantly feels the other tense up. Shintarou’s looking out the window, and the darkness outside makes it difficult to see his face. “Relax. We _are_ supposed to be—displaying some sort of affection.”  
  
“Do we,” Shintarou says quietly, still not looking at him, “Also have to pretend to—to kiss.”  
  
Seijuurou raises an eyebrow. He would not be averse to that—no, after seeing Shintarou, he’s positive that things are developing at an even faster pace than he’d anticipated. This simply would not do. He says, evenly, “Holding hands is fine.”  
  
“Are you certain?”  
  
 _Do you want to make certain?_ Seijuurou finds himself wanting to ask, but he doesn’t. Instead, he makes sure the leather partition between the driver and them is shut before replying, “Yes, I am certain. I do not suppose we will have to engage very long with the source of trouble as soon as he—”  
  
Shintarou makes a disgruntled noise. “Why do you have to say it like that.”  
  
“…Are you suggesting I mean something else?”  
  
“No!” And then, as if completely giving up on that thought, there’s a pull on Seijuurou’s own immaculately tailored sleeve. “I mean, yes—yes, you _do_ …mean something else. Am I wrong?”  
  
He’s looking at Seijuurou now, and well—they’ve known each other long enough and well enough that Seijuurou figures there is no adequate way to hide it. Not that he wants to, now that what he is thinking is also confirmed in Shintarou’s eyes.  
  
“You shouldn’t doubt yourself so much, Shintarou,” Seijuurou says, his hand already on the other’s lap. “But perhaps we should…practice, before we need to perform before an audience.”  
  
“I…” Shintarou replies haltingly, his hands already reaching for his glasses in his usual display of embarrassment, but Seijuurou intercepts his wrist gently. “I would not be opposed to…practice.”  
  
Seijuurou smiles as he leans in. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”


	6. in the dark of the night (aokagakuro, ghosts)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aomine and kagami go on a ghostbustin adventure (spoilers: they fail)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR1) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21931.html?thread=10982571#cmt10982571): ghost adventures au but aokaga eventually end up trying to fight the ghosts. [aomine voice] COME AND HARM ME (he would later regret that command)
> 
> warnings: kuroko is a ghost in this so yes he's dead

“This is a shit idea.”  
  
“Fuck you, this is _great_.”  
  
Kagami stands shivering in the snow, fumbles with his flashlight, and almost drops it. Aomine’s too busy flipping over some tires to notice him. Maybe this is his cue, Kagami thinks as the icy wind stings his face, to run away. Run back to the car, rev up the engine, leave Aomine to die out here in the cold because he deserves it.  
  
Too bad Aomine’s the one with the car keys. (Kagami made a mental note to steal them back, because there is no way he’s gonna let Aomine anywhere near the driver’s seat at this point.)  
  
“Oi!” Aomine shouts, into the darkness of the deserted parking lot. He waves around a stick they’d found half-buried near the car menacingly. “I know you’re there, fucking ghost!”  
  
“We’re gonna die,” Kagami mutters to himself, teeth chattering. “We’re gonna fucking die out here you idiot, stop _calling_ them to us, what—”   
  
“Ghosts aren’t fucking real, Bakagami,” Aomine says, clearly too drunk to realize _he’s_ the one who’s even more scared of ghosts than Kagami is. He walks up to the broken glass door, knocking at the brick wall. “They’re…they’re haunting, the _Blockbuster_.”  
  
“You…you just said they aren’t real,” Kagami says incredulously, but Aomine’s already let himself inside. Whether or not Aomine’s ignoring him because of the alcohol or if he’s just that big of an asshole remains to be seen; Kagami sighs, biting his lip, and follows him. He’d been the one who’d joked about them going on an adventure, after all—but he hadn’t known it would’ve come down to _this_.  
  
“Why the fuck am I even here.”  
  
“Because you love me?”  
  
“I hate you,” Kagami mutters. Then, “Oi, where the hell are you? I can’t see a thing.”  
  
“I’m—“  
  
There’s a crash, and he hears Aomine curse somewhere to the right of him. Only the tiniest bit of streetlight filters in through the holes in the door, and suddenly Kagami feels the hair stand up at the back of his head. Ghosts or not, it’s clear from the musty scent and lack of electricity that nobody’s been here for a long time.  
  
(And even if there have been—he isn’t sure he wants to be accidentally walking into a meth lab, or something.)  
  
“Hey, Ahomine,” Kagami whispers, urgently. “There’s nothing here, okay? We should leave.”  
  
“What, you scared?”  
  
He really shouldn’t have let Aomine have at his beer stash in the trunk. Kagami would probably laugh at him later for only daring to explore this place with alcohol in his system, but at the moment he isn’t feeling much braver either. There’s something spooky about the tiny bits of light reflecting off the metal railings, the deserted countertops—  
  
Then he hears footsteps.  
  
“Aomine, this isn’t funny.”  
  
“I’m fucking funny, Kagami,” Aomine slurs, but his sound’s still coming from the right of Kagami as he maneuvers his way to where his boyfriend stands. Kagami swallows. The footsteps, if he’d heard correctly—it was the wind, it had to be—had come from his left. “I can out-funny a ghost anytime. Hey ghost, wanna hear a joke?”  
  
“Aomine—“  
  
“Is that his name?” comes a soft voice, unfamiliar, right next to Kagami's ear. “Aomine-kun?”  
  
Kagami screams at the same time Aomine does, and he reaches out to grab his boyfriend by the wrist as he turns around to dash out the door, banging it open as they scramble out into the cold. He feels his legs buckle as he slows, and he kneels into the soft snow, panting. It’s cold enough that there’s no smell of rust in the air, but he can start feeling the cuts on his shoulder from the glass they’d just broken through. It hadn’t been a lot of glass, but—  
  
He chances a look backwards now that they are far enough away. Seeing nothing but the terrifying black void of the doorway, Kagami exhales slowly as he stands up again, shaking. “Fuck, what the fuck, was that—“  
  
“It’s just me.”  
  
Kagami freezes.  
  
Aomine’s hand is still in his, cold, dry, surprisingly un-sweaty for someone who sweats as much as he does. It’s also small—too small to be Aomine’s.  
  
Kagami looks up slowly, finding himself staring into the hollow eyes of a young man, snowflakes falling steadily into his light blue hair. The streetlight behind him shines right through him, golden and eerie. Somehow, he finds himself unable to let go.  
  
“Hello,” the ghost says. “I’m Kuroko Tetsuya. Do you want to borrow a movie?”  
  
Kagami faceplants into the snow.


	7. don't fear the reaper (midorima & lucky items, toy story au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kerosuke and the terrifying rescue mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR1) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=9728530#cmt9728530): Toy Story AU

“Look,” Kerosuke says, from his vantage point on top of the drawers, “I don’t think this is a good idea. In fact, it’s probably a very, very bad—”  
  
“Oh, shut it,” Tanuki-san hisses, pushing him aside. The other toys are crowded beneath the table, jostling for a better position. “Let me take a look. They can’t be coming back this quickly—you want to save Lucky Pencil #54, don’t you, Kerosuke?”  
  
In a corner of the room several toys, including a teruteru-bozu and a stuffed rabbit, are comforting Lucky Pencil #53, who is sobbing despondently. Shintarou never gives out his lucky pencils, they’d all thought until now. All the other toys had seen them come and go, heads held high like brave soldiers going into the battlefield and giving their lives to their master. Shintarou always took care of his toys, polished the porcelain dolls and dusted the figurines, sharpened his pencils diligently and never broke their nibs.  
  
But yesterday Shintarou had taken Lucky Pencil #54 out of his casing, before Lucky Pencil #53 was even halfway used up, and packed him up for school. That could only mean one thing, the toys all knew; they’d seen it happen before, but never to a pencil.   
  
“We don’t even know what kind of person other than Shintarou would _need_ a Lucky Pencil,” Tanuki-san says darkly as he looks out towards the cloudy skies. “Lucky Pencil #54 could be being _tortured_ right now, you know? Do you remember how Slinky was taken from us?”  
  
Slinky had been one of Shintarou’s favorites before he had been abruptly sent to the Dreaded Morning Death Row, the show Shintarou listens to religiously every day, without fail. Slinkies were the lucky items of the day for one of their master’s many acquaintances, called Scorpio or Sagittarius or something, and so their dear friend had been wrenched from his home, shrieking wordlessly.  
  
The toys had not seen Slinky since. (A motion to construct a memorial was halted from lack of funding for the rest of their fallen.)  
  
Kerosuke swallows. Shintarou and his family had gone on a weekend outing to a place called Atami, and would not be expected back until late in the day. Kerosuke knows Tokyo is big, and that the other toys are counting on him, Shintarou’s favorite, to do his duty. Still, the thought of leaving the house alone is terrifying—he had never done it before, not without his master. “I…I…”  
  
Tanuki-san looks at him in disgust. “You just want to save your own ass, don’t you?”  
  
“No! No, I…how could you say that?” Kerosuke cries, hopping onto the windowsill. He could not let his position be compromised—not by Tanuki-san, or anyone else. The frog turns towards the other toys bravely, puffing up his chest. “Follow me, everyone. We’ll get Lucky Pencil #54 back, I promise you!”  
  
In the distance, a low rumble of thunder; Kerosuke could only wonder in despair at what he’s gotten them all into as he tumbles into the wet, dewy grass below, the other toys clambering towards him, as the first drops of rain start to fall.


	8. watch dog (mayuaka, werewolf au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mayuzumi's life sucks all the time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR1) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21931.html?thread=11440043#cmt11440043): The Akashi family is an ancient line of monster hunters. Werewolf Mayuzumi just wants to be left alone.

“I didn’t know you’ve started keeping pets, Sei-chan,” Mibuchi says, stirring his drink as he gives Mayuzumi a once-over. There’s a smile on his face, but what’s in his eyes is another matter. “Your father allows this?”  
  
“My father does not need to know about this.”  
  
“I’m not a fucking pet,” Mayuzumi says, but neither pays any attention to him whatsoever.  
  
-  
  
It had happened like this: Mayuzumi had been dozing in a tree after a particularly bothersome transformation. He’d also happened to have lost his clothing somewhere—that, or the village children had stolen them again.   
  
(Mayuzumi had overheard them talking about finding _shirts that mysteriously appeared during full moons_. He isn’t one to bite children, but every goddamned time this happened—ugh.)  
  
And so he had been in a most _embarrassing_ state of undress when someone had shaken him out of the tree.  
  
“What the hell,” he’d said, naked and much too disoriented to be scared, at the muzzle of a revolver only an inch or so from his face. The young man was looking down at him, unmoving, his mismatched eyes unnervingly calm. “Who—”  
  
“Akashi Seijuurou,” the man said, and Mayuzumi hadn’t needed to hear another word to know he was incredibly fucked.  
  
-  
  
“It’s true there’s no bounty on your head,” Akashi tells him before Mayuzumi can ask another variation of The Question. “Besides, it was unnecessary. You wouldn’t have gotten far, anyhow.”  
  
“Yeah, whatever.”  
  
They’re standing outside the tavern, waiting for a stagecoach after parting ways with Mibuchi. It’s drizzling slightly, though with some luck the rain would let up on the road. As mildly annoying as it is traveling with someone who attracted attention wherever he goes, the combination of Mayuzumi’s own lack of presence and Akashi’s magic is more than enough to keep other hunters off his scent. What’s _really_ fucking annoying is Akashi’s friends, once they find out what he is.  
  
Not that he cares. Mayuzumi holds the umbrella over their heads as the coach arrives, bowing mockingly as he opens the door. “You first, young master.”  
  
Akashi ignores him and steps inside, but Mayuzumi could almost _swear_ he the redhead is rolling his eyes.  
  
-  
  
“Would you rather not accompany me to these meetings anymore?”  
  
“When have you ever cared about what I wanted,” Mayuzumi says, moving forward so he’s snug. Akashi murmurs something incomprehensible as he continues to stroke Mayuzumi’s hair absentmindedly. “Not like anything will happen.”  
  
“I would rather you be doing something more useful, if you prefer.” Akashi closes the ancient spellbook, sliding it away from him. “I do not need a note-taker, though a werewolf’s opinion may be useful in some cases. Perhaps—“  
  
“You need someone to sneak into houses, eavesdrop, steal artifacts without getting caught.”  
  
Akashi smiles as he leans down to touch foreheads with Mayuzumi, lightly. “If you want to put it that way.”  
  
“Spoiled brat,” Mayuzumi says, but he pulls Akashi into a kiss anyway.


	9. premonition (nijihimu, the eye)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shuuzou is handed an unusual patient to take care of

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR2) Prompt: [The Eye](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11961321#cmt11961321) (Movie)
> 
> warnings: horror, blood, disability (partial blindness, implied in the past), medical issues (hospitalization, surgery), supernatural elements

“You don’t believe me,” Tatsuya says. It’s not a question—Shuuzou looks up from his case file and frowns. “You don’t believe I can see the future.”  
  
“Nobody can do that,” Shuuzou tells him. To his credit, Tatsuya does not seem to get upset when he says this, not like the first time this happened. Instead, he gestures at a young man accompanied by a nurse in the corridor. “What?”  
  
Tatsuya smiles, beautiful, terrifying. “He’s going to die tomorrow.”  
  
-  
  
“Bullshit,” Shuuzou whispers.  
  
Coincidences happen. After several years at this job, it’s become easier to _distinguish_ that from what’s physically evident, but it does not make his job _easier_. He watches the clean-up crew mop up the blood pooling into the corridor, feeling a wave of nausea coming up the back of his throat.  
  
It had been an accident. Something about the full-body scanner malfunctioning—Shuuzou doesn’t stay to hear the rest.  
  
He finds Tatsuya in his tenth floor room, reading a book. “Well?”  
  
“Did you know,” Shuuzou says, walking up to him and yanking the book out of his hands, “Messing with hospital machinery is _illegal_?”  
  
“I haven’t been out of the room since yesterday,” Tatsuya replies, his tone even. Still, there is something brittle in his voice as he continues. “You can check the nurse’s records, they’re right here.”  
  
“I don’t care about the records.”  
  
“Is that how a doctor should act?”  
  
“You…”  
  
“If you care so much about this,” Tatsuya says, dropping his voice. Shuuzou raises a hand, reaching for the records, but stops. “Please help me then, Doctor.”  
  
-  
  
_The patient had been given an eye cornea transplant for his left eye a week ago._ That was all Shuuzou had been told before his father had transferred Tatsuya to him from the general hospital. _The sight in that eye has been restored, but there have been some other…problems._  
  
Now Tatsuya is sitting next to him on the bullet train, half-dozing, his head on Shuuzou’s shoulder.  
  
He won’t say it’s not a pleasant feeling, the warmth of skin on skin. Tatsuya is definitely the kind of person who can and will get away with anything simply by virtue of his looks. Shuuzou turns a little, trying to get a better look—the locks of dark hair that always obscure his left eye have shifted in sleep, exposing to Shuuzou the remnants of scarring that remain from the surgery.  
  
It looks no different when closed—but when the food trolley rolls past and Tatsuya stirs, Shuuzou catches a glint of gold in his eye before he leans away. “Sorry.”  
  
“…It’s fine.” Shuuzou sighs, fiddling with his seatbelt. The image burrows itself into his mind, refusing to let go—so much so that he turns to Tatsuya again. “Your eye. It’s…a different color, I wasn’t expecting that.”  
  
“Oh.” Tatsuya brushes his hair back into place, and they sit in silence for a moment. “Do you like it?”  
  
“It’s pretty,” Shuuzou replies without thinking. Tatsuya laughs softly, and he feels his face color. “Stop laughing!”  
  
“You’re cute when you blush,” Tatsuya says, reaching over to flick Shuuzou’s own bangs out of his eyes. His fingers are warm, too—a little surprising. “It’s pretty, huh?”  
  
_Don’t flirt with your patients._ Shuuzou wills himself to look away, beyond Tatsuya, to the scenery rapidly falling away from them outside. It’s nearing dusk, and they’re still half an hour away from Kyoto. “It’s pretty, but we’ve also gotta do something about it, don’t we?”  
  
“Of course.” Tatsuya smiles, and Shuuzou can tell it’s back, the tension in his voice. They say nothing more until the train comes to a stop, and they follow the stream of people down to the platform. If they hurry, Shuuzou thinks as he looks at his phone, they might be able to make it to the hospital in time.  
  
Then he catches Tatsuya looking back as he leaves, towards the departure platform. “Hey, we should get going. You want to meet this Akashi guy, don’t you?”  
  
“Wait.”  
  
He follows Tatsuya’s gaze to a woman standing near a pillar, intent on her phone. She doesn’t seem to notice either of them, but then again, they are standing too far away. “Do you know her?”  
  
“No,” Tatsuya says. “But—“  
  
“Then I don’t want to hear it.” Shuuzou grabs his hand, yanking him along—Tatsuya does not resist, though Shuuzou knows he could. Quickly they are swallowed up in the crowd again, and this time, Shuuzou walks fast enough and loud enough that whatever happens behind him next is silenced by the sound of his own pounding heart.


	10. endless (aokise, making out)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> youth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR2) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11773929#cmt11773929): behind the bike shed, chain-link fence digging into my back

**「the sea」**  
  
the first time ryouta sees daiki he sees the color of the sea, dazzling and distant and far too much for him to handle. it doesn’t even matter what words had come out of his mouth in that instant—no meaning could be ascribed to the emotions he felt upon seeing ball connect with hand and the electricity of their sneakers against the hardwood floor.  
  
a lighthouse, its everlasting flame upon the shore drawing ryouta in from the stormy waters of his mind.  
  
 _(i had wanted to come in, so badly)_

  
  
**「bedazzled」**  
  
the first time they kiss it had been an accident on the stairs; ryouta had been running late, and he’d stumbled into daiki’s unsuspecting arms taking the steps two by two.  
  
as fate would have it—he’d tasted exactly like ryouta had least expected, salt and the remains of the day’s lunch.  
  
(he’s not a romantic—never has been, even if he takes himself to be. that’s daiki’s job to be horrified, after all, but only after an indefinite amount of time and childish petulance has passed.)  
  
the umpteenth time they kiss it’s behind the touou dormitories, behind the rusted chain-link fences that open up to a whole new world to them of deserted courts and little streams. daiki is country child at heart after all, but neither the inquisitive insects or the sweltering heat matter anymore when ryouta’s pressed up against the metal, daiki’s lips on his after a particularly good match.  
  
“you put on enough chapstick for the both of us,” he would say, and ryouta would be inclined to voice his agreement were it not for the hunger compelling him to pull daiki in, pulling at his hair, biting down until he can’t remember where memory stops and fantasies begin—

  
  
**「torn」**  
  
he won’t think of those times that summer when everything had been lost, oh, _oh,_ when the thunder rolled in and stayed and stayed and—  
  
“i’m glad.”  
  
maybe he’d been wrong choosing this path, but well, ryouta’s never been one to dwell on the past. and he’s not wrong, maybe for the other flares in his life, smaller, dimmer, but this—never this.  
  
even if it were to kill both of them basketball is a song with no end and he would not know any other until the heavens come crashing down between them.  
  
 _(and if we were lonely, we were lonely together.)_

  
  
**「summer」**  
  
when graduation comes they take the train south, to get away for a while because that’s all daiki had ever wanted—or so he grumbled, only after kurokocchi and kagamicchi and the rest of them had happily dropped them off at the station without so much as a “can’t i come along too?”  
  
(daiki would’ve said yes eventually, ryouta knows he would’ve, but secretly he’s glad their friends know better.)  
  
they make it as south as atami and because neither of them are the kind to plan ahead, hop out and never look back as soon as they see the signs pointing to the sea.  
  
 _later, a photograph from behind a fence: walking hand-in-hand along the shore, daiki waving a half-eaten dango in ryouta’s face, ryouta turning towards him to lick the mitarashi sauce off his lips, the chain-linked circles perfectly framing their smiles and the never-ending blue behind._


	11. cabin fever (liuhimu, vampire au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> domestic intercultural vampires

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR2) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=12251881#cmt12251881): vampire au

It’s nice that they can stay up together throughout night, unlike all the others Tatsuya had encountered in the past.  
  
(Although Wei is always quick to correct any mutual friends when someone says _the v word_ around him, it’s not exactly a false statement. Tatsuya isn’t usually one to tease him on semantics, but—well.)  
  
“I’m home.”  
  
“Hey.”  
  
Wei waves to him lazily from the couch, which he takes up the entirety of. His laptop’s open, playing some Chinese gaming show that Tatsuya’s glanced at a few times but could never tell what’s going on. It’s just beginning to get light outside—the shift at the hospital today had been tiring, but at least Tatsuya had gotten something out of it.   
  
He takes out the blood bags from the cooler and walks into the kitchen.  
  
“Can you get me some water?”  
  
“Yeah, sure.”  
  
The bags go into the fridge, and Tatsuya reaches for a glass from the dish rack. He’s got a moderately well-stocked supply of nutrition now, though Tatsuya—some baser part of him—still would not say no anyone if they offered themselves up.   
  
Though that’s not something Wei can help him with. When Tatsuya brings him the water, setting it down on the table beside the laptop, he feels an insistent tug at his shirt hem. “Yes?”  
  
“Wanna watch with me?”  
  
“You don’t seem like you’ve eaten yet,” Tatsuya says, sitting down next to—well, on top of, considering the size of the couch—him, a hand resting on Wei’s knee. Skin against skin, Tatsuya’s unnatural coolness against Wei’s clamminess, especially telling now that Tatsuya can tell nothing’s gone to his stomach in a while. Ever since Tatsuya had started getting busy again, in fact. “Aren’t you hungry?”  
  
Wei shakes his head. Even after so long (a good few months, mere drops in the bucket of the time they would have together) Tatsuya still doesn’t quite get how _jiangshi_ work. The rules are easy enough for Tatsuya’s kind: avoid the sunlight, avoid the pointy ends of sticks, take blood whenever they can and need. He can readily pass as human at night, especially after a good feeding to give him the radiant glow of almost-but-not-quite-alive.  
  
One look and Tatsuya can tell Wei misses being outside, much more than he’s hungry. “We should go out tonight. It’s the holidays, there aren’t that many people around to see.”  
  
(Even after he is done feeding, Wei’s condition stays the same, just with more control of his body. It makes their makeouts a little awkward otherwise, but Tatsuya has done more for less. Much more, in fact, that he finds it a little endearing when he arrives home to see Wei shuffling around in the kitchen to prepare something for him.)  
  
Wei sighs, looking at him with a wry smile. “Yeah, good idea.”  
  
Tatsuya leans over, but it is Wei who pulls him down, stiff joints be damned, any mentions of food and the video promptly forgotten.


	12. cuddles (nijiaka, there can only be one)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> """"platonic"""" bedsharing >:3c

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR2) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11616745#cmt11616745): There can only be one.

“What do you mean there can only be one?” Nijimura says, frowning at the charts Momoi had just delivered piping hot into his hands. “This can’t be right—“  
  
“Unfortunately the school doesn’t enough funds to send more than two people, Nijimura-san,” Momoi says, a little apologetic, and a little too pleased in the way Nijimura takes to mean trouble is brewing on the horizon, “So only one other member gets to go to the conference aside from the captain.”  
  
“So you’re coming?”  
  
“Don’t be silly,” Momoi says. “Akashi-kun is the vice captain. Of course he’s the one going.”  
  
“But you’re the manager, shouldn’t you also—“  
  
“I’m actually not available that day, Captain Nijimura,” Momoi replies, flashes him a big smile that’s completely not terrifying or anything coupled with her enunciation of his name. Nijimura _could_ order her to attend, of course, but something tells him that would be a bad idea. “Anyway, if you two go together, that’ll make assigning rooms easier, won’t it? Akashi-kun can give me the details when you’re back.”  
  
(Oh, he’s _in_ for it now.)  
  
-  
  
The conference is in Nagoya, and Shuuzou would’ve gladly taken the shinkansen or even the slow local trains to get there despite the extra time. Anything but flying, and anything but flying with Akashi Seijuurou sitting next to him, looking like he’s completely at home despite their surroundings (Shuuzou’s sure Akashi’s never flown in anything less than first class before outside of school trips.)  
  
Shuuzou, for his part, wants to die. Badly.  
  
He hates flying—Momoi knows that, the whole team knows that, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s forced to be present. The rumble of the airplane as it lifts off, each little movement that tells Shuuzou _oh god, what’s happening now_ , the rattling of trays and cutlery on the food cart. It’s only an hour, he reasons as he tries to settle in to his aisle seat. At least he could get up and walk around if he feels too jittery.  
  
“Are you okay, Nijimura-san?”  
  
Akashi’s concerned voice brings him back from his jumbled thoughts, and Shuuzou looks at him a little apologetically. This is no way for a senpai to act. “Yeah, no, I—I’m fine. You should get some rest before we touch down.”  
  
“Nijimura-san should do the same.”  
  
He touches Shuuzou’s arm briefly, the kind of touch that says either _please take care_ or something else upon reexamination a few more minutes into Shuuzou’s troubled sleep. So briefly, in fact, that afterwards Shuuzou’s starting to think he might’ve hallucinated the whole thing.   
  
(Why’s he so hung up on that, anyway?)  
  
-  
  
They share a room—of course, this is what Momoi had meant by saving money.   
  
And of course, with Shuuzou’s luck, there’s only one bed.  
  
“Um,” he says, as soon as they enter. Akashi nonchalantly walks over to the bed, pats it, and promptly turns around. “Akashi, do you mind—“  
  
“They’re out of rooms,” Akashi says, back still towards him. “I heard the staff talking on the way up. Do you want me to sleep on the—“  
  
“No,” Shuuzou says, cutting him off immediately. Having Akashi sleep anywhere but the bed would probably result in his untimely death via mafia hit, or whatever security the Akashi family keeps employed. “I’ll…it’s just for one night.”  
  
“Yes,” Akashi replies, looking back with a small smile, the kind that only too late does Shuuzou realize reminds him of Momoi’s. “Just for one night.”  
  
-  
  
“I hate you,” Shuuzou says an hour later, covering his face with his hands.  
  
Akashi puts a hand on his back, and Shuuzou could feel the heat through his clothes. “Do you mean that, Nijimura-san?”  
  
“Of course not, idiot!” He feels Akashi laugh against his back, arms wrapped around his middle. “I just…you could’ve told me.”  
  
“Is Nijimura-san flustered?”  
  
 _If by flustered you mean am I embarrassed to high hell after accidentally confessing my feelings to my kouhai while in the same bed,_ Shuuzou thinks, but the only thing that happens is him turning around to flick Akashi on the forehead. “Go to sleep.”  
  
(He’ll be relieved to be alive come morning.)


	13. take flight (kagakuro, homesickness)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sometimes it's best to take a step back and look at it that way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR2) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11620841#cmt11620841): Homesickness

In the distance the birds are already calling, their cries elevated by the first rays of morning filtering in through your window. You open your eyes gradually, feeling the sun’s caress, the light drawing you out from beneath the covers.  
  
He’s next to you, breathing slow and even, yet to awaken. You brush his hair out of his face, or try to—he’s got a good grip on you, an arm wound around your middle, a leg over yours. It would be suffocating if you hadn’t wanted this so much. Both of you had wanted this so much.  
  
 _(I don’t know how to tell you this_ you said last night, holding him with your fingers digging into his skin. _How do I make you know?_  
  
 _You don’t have to tell me anything_ he said, and you knew in that moment it was true.)  
  
Consider: sitting inside Maji Burger, watching him consume an amount equivalent to a nuclear family’s weekly calorie intake. You sip on your milkshake, content. He stuffs burger after burger into his mouth, but it looks less obscene as one might take it to be (perhaps after witnessing the eating habits of your former partner, nothing is obscene anymore.) Sometimes you listen to him talk about the past, of Los Angeles and the sparkling lights and the late nights out at In-n-Out. Sometimes you talk about the present, coach yelling at you for running too slow or at him for getting chased off-track by something or another (Nigou, usually).  
  
Sometimes you talk about the future, and these are the times you watch his eyes grow distant, longing.  
  
It’s not something you can give him, not even basketball, which he loves perhaps more than life itself. _You wouldn’t know_ —he does not say this, not even when both of you are on the couch watching some cheesy film and you’re falling asleep and he’s leaning into you, mouthing along to the lyrics of a bygone era.  
  
You wouldn’t know the wide streets and expanse of desert stretching into the sky, the downtown noises and lights permeating the air, the salty air of the beach tasting ever so slightly different from the wind over Tokyo Bay. He may not need the ring around his neck as a constant reminder of _something from home_ anymore, but now it is a reminder of a different kind when you hear him laugh in English over the phone in the kitchen, when he points out all the places in the city he’s been to in a show and grumbles at the inaccurate portrayals.  
  
You watch him take the phone call and then the next, the call to his father the last in the chain of events that will be etched into your memory of a sunny blue day, not overwriting what last was there but close enough.  
  
When he finally looks at you eye-to-eye the night before the match you know what he knows, and it is then the finality of it strikes at your heart, lighting a match to something greater than before.  
  
 _I’m sorry._  
  
You place a hand to his chest.  
  
 _Why would you be? You gave me so much…_  
  
And when the deed is done and the overflowing drink and food has calmed enough the raucousness left in your friends’ eyes, you take his hand and tell him, _it’s time to let go_.  
  
You can already see the light in his eyes as he begins to talk, and you see the future spread before him, in a thousand miles in a thousand directions, across the sea and home. There is no permanence in such a world, but maybe there is something else in that smile you would be willing to give away so it could become brighter.  
  
 _In time, you will set ablaze the world._  
  
It’s not something you can give him, but you can be by his side when he decides to take flight.


	14. jangles (kagahimu, ankle bracelet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kagami visits himuro at work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR2) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11622121#cmt11622121): Ankle Bracelet
> 
> warnings: sexual content implied, strip clubs

Taiga is already sweating the moment he sees the neon signage rise out of nowhere, past the pizzeria and hair salon and who knows what else. He doesn’t come to this part of town often; it’s Tatsuya who frequents this area, and mostly for work.  
  
He tries to ignore the stares he’s probably getting (that probably aren’t even directed his way; it’s not _that_ terribly seedy, though the signs are clear enough for Taiga to tell where one part of town ends and the other begins.) A few seconds of deliberation in front of the drugstore for a bite to eat ends with a very infrequent interruption of his mind going _you sure you want to go in with a full stomach?_  
  
Taiga’s not even sure what to expect.  
  
When he gets there the bouncer sizes him up for what seems like an eternity before he grunts something unintelligible and lets Taiga inside. He’s never been to a strip club before, but the music and neon lights and immediate smell of alcohol are within expectations. Patrons mill about on the ground floor amidst the dim lights, and they seem almost—normal?  
  
 _You’re not in a movie, okay? Get a grip on yourself_  
  
It’s not that Taiga disapproves of how Tatsuya wants to work his way through college; this is a good-paying job, and Tatsuya works hard, if the late nights and dark circles tell him anything. He’s just a little worried.  
  
(Okay, a lot worried. What if he gets hurt? Are the management assholes? He never talks about work much, and though it’s only on the weekends…)  
  
There’s a cheer to the right of him, drawing his attention to the brightly-lit stage.   
  
_Oh._  
  
The ring, with multicolored light reflecting off its surface as Tatsuya moves, is what gives him away. Taiga feels his mouth dry up as he approaches the crowd, just as mesmerized as the rest of them. He’s seen Tatsuya up close before, countless times in the bedroom, but something is different about the way he moves here—still clothed, but just barely. The sultry smile and flick of his hair, the thin silver bracelets around his ankles shimmering beneath disco lights, how he arcs his back and rolls his hips.   
  
There’s no question of who’s the most popular dancer here, judging by the amount of people quickly filling in the spaces next to Taiga, some even trying to elbow him out of the way. Maybe it would be a fairer comparison of he would take even a brief glance at the other stages, but even that, Taiga finds out soon enough, is proving difficult.  
  
When Tatsuya swings a well-toned leg over the pole, turning around to assess the crowd, Taiga knows he’s a goner.  
  
-  
  
“I know I’m not supposed to be here” is the first thing that comes out of Taiga’s mouth, preemptively, like he’s a child who knows he’s done something terribly wrong. Tatsuya is closing the door, and Taiga has no idea what he’s thinking right now apart from the slight surprise on his face when he’d first seen Taiga standing there below. “I mean, they don’t like it when—family, boyfriends, come here, right…? Are you gonna get in trouble? Because—”  
  
“Taiga,” Tatsuya says, turning around, the dim lights of the VIP room staining everything an off shade of pink. Taiga stares at his ankles; he can kind of make out what it’s supposed to be, the graceful form of a Japanese dragon wound around Tatsuya’s skin. He swallows. “I told them you’re a paying customer.”  
  
“Oh.” Then, “Um, well.”  
  
“If you’re trying to stage an intervention, you’re doing a pretty bad job,” Tatsuya says lightly, walking towards him in his too-tight leather pants, and oh, Taiga’s face feels like it’s suddenly turned seventeen different shades of red. And even in this shitty lighting Tatsuya can most _definitely_ see it.  
  
 _If this is what I’m paying for,_ Taiga thinks as he looks up in both awe and horror from where he’s seating, at the smirk slowly starting to form on Tatsuya’s lips and the way his body sways, the little jangle of metal around his ankles as he comes to rest on Taiga’s lap. _Big. Fucking. Mistake._


	15. starlight, star bright (nijihimu, stardust au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> stardust au where tristran!nijimura is unfortunately transformed into a duck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR2) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=12145641#cmt12145641): drop of a star

“You can’t hear or feel me, right?” Tatsuya says, waving a hand in front of the man. He considers plucking out one of his too-thick eyebrows for a moment, but refrains—there’s a limit to the risks he wants to take today, after all. “Hello?”  
  
No response. He watches Hanamiya leave for the front of the caravan, completely undisturbed by the presence of another unwanted person in the room. _Oh._  
  
An inquisitive chirp next to him alerts Tatsuya to the fact that he is, in fact, still a tangible being. He smiles briefly at the multicolored finch upon its perch near the entrance, one of its feet chained to the wood. It hops close and tilts its head, as if inspecting him, then returns to its sleep with its head under a wing.  
  
If Hanamiya’s blindness to him had been the work of some curse, at least it was working in his favor for now. Tatsuya turns back to the cage and its occupant, who is staring up at him with mournful eyes.  
  
He pats the cage. “You’ve gotten yourself into quite a predicament, haven’t you?”  
  
The duck quacks at him once, then falls silent.  
  
-  
  
Even if Hanamiya keeps his word, they’re still weeks away from the fairgrounds. As lonely as it is down here without anyone to talk to, there’s some solace in Tatsuya feeling his body mending with the passing days. The caravan is not a pleasant place to stay, for humans or fae or stars, but he will have to make do with the rattling vials of poison inside the cupboards and the strange smells emanating from the locked trunk under the bed.  
  
(There are times Tatsuya wonders what would happen were he to open it, perhaps find a way to free Shuu of the curse sooner, but there is no telling if his invisibility extends so far to something such as this.)  
  
He can’t tell if Shuu could actually understand his words, or if the sounds he makes are attempts at coherent responses (it’s sort of cute, Tatsuya admits, the way he seems to quack indignantly whenever he is lifted none too gently out of the cage at night.) Perhaps it does not matter—perhaps he won’t even remember any of this, once they get to the fair.  
  
While the night reigns he would climb up to the top of the caravan with Shuu, who even with wings still seems wary of heights, and they would look up together at the night sky dotted with lights.  
  
(It is not the same, sitting atop a dusty caravan looking up at the stars when he _belongs_ among them, but if Tatsuya closes his eyes he can picture himself there again, looking down at the world, dazzling and whole.)  
  
And then Shuu would rest his head on Tatsuya’s chest and he would be brought back, to the soft white feathers in his arms and low snores coming from inside the caravan. He wants to be touching hair and skin, not feathers or bills—he thinks about Shuu’s dark hair and sharp gaze, the way his face had flushed in embarrassment as he’d touched Tatsuya’s legs while making the splinter, the way he smiles with that odd upturn of the lip when he thinks Tatsuya isn’t looking…  
  
He also thinks about what Shuu wants him for, what he tries to say but cannot bear to, unlike Tatsuya who buries it deep inside because he does not want to see the truth. About his father beyond the Wall, the illness, the cure found in a star’s blood.  
  
The duck is quiet when Tatsuya returns him to the cage come morning, its only quarrel with Tatsuya being a nip on the fingers when he slides a stalk of celery inside. On the perch, the finch pecks in his general direction as he passes; Tatsuya pats it, fascinated by the iridescence of its feathers in the morning sunlight. There’s something to be said about the senses of animals in Faerie, but if Shuu knows anything about what Tatsuya had been thinking, he isn’t giving anything up.  
  
And so maybe, for just a little while longer, Tatsuya can play pretend.


	16. something stolen (imahana, victorian au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> convoluted victorian era au, a la jack the ripper and oliver twist, that kind of thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR3) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22341.html?thread=12613189#cmt12613189)

“And you?” Imayoshi asks, all sweet-sounding and pleasant, dancing firelight reflecting off his spectacles. “How are you going to get out this time if you get caught, Makoto?”  
  
Hanamiya leans back in his seat. There are a couple ways he could answer, but after a few moments he realizes with exasperation that none of them present an opportunity for him to sink his fist into Imayoshi’s face. “I could say the same of you.”  
  
“Then why don’t we just get right into it?” Imayoshi answers, reaching into his coat and producing a few letters, the wax seals familiar and, Hanamiya finds, too conspicuous. Not like that’s ever stopped Imayoshi, that bastard. “A gift.”  
  
Two seconds of deliberation pass before Hanamiya snatches them away to toss into the fireplace. “Whatever.”  
  
-  
  
Hanamiya kicks at a pebble on the cobblestone street, watching it fly across and hit the wheel of a passing carriage. The driver curses as his horse rears up; he keeps his head down as he walks away from the commotion, tugging at his collar. It’s too fucking cold this time of the year, and too much fucking trouble going around the city.  
  
Seto is lounging outside The Spiderweb, yawning as someone barges out of the pub door and sprawls onto the ground. Hanamiya sidesteps the man, wrinkling his nose at the brief whiff of stale alcohol that assaults him as the door closes. “Where the fuck are the others?”  
  
“Dunno. Hara’s inside, I think.”  
  
“You’re supposed to be on watch,” Hanamiya hisses, but Seto shrugs and looks away, at the crowd of young university students coming their way. With the way they’re dressed, ruffles and top-hats and all, it’s not hard to imagine the pickings for today. Hanamiya stands aside as they file in, rowdy, oblivious, as he makes short work of the contents of their pockets.  
  
“Why do I have to do everything myself.”  
  
Seto smirks as he slides the gold cufflinks into his own pocket. “Because you’re the best, boss.”  
  
Hanamiya wants to tell him to shove it, but the noise coming from inside, sounding suspiciously familiar, draws his attention away once more.   
  
-  
  
“You won’t get very far like this,” Imayoshi says, later, when the candle has burned low and the window is sealed tight, keeping the chill away from his cramped apartment down by Waterloo. “They would be on to you and your little gang soon, with the way things are going.”  
  
Hanamiya rolls his eyes, shifting his weight so he’s pressed just a little harder on Imayoshi’s arm. It’s true they’ve become more cautious following the chaos in the city and the new curfew, but then again, neither he nor his crew have got anything to do with  _that_. “I’m not the one murdering prostitutes up and down the street. Don’t  _you_  have a serial killer to catch?”  
  
Imayoshi sighs, like he isn’t the one regularly double-crossing Scotland Yard with all the press leaks and letter stealing. “It wouldn’t be nice to see someone I know end up in the gallows, is all.”  
  
“Yeah, right.” He doesn’t budge even as Imayoshi lays an arm across his bare chest, the brush of his fingers raising goosebumps across his skin.  _Easy for you to say._  “Like a cop would care.”  
  
“You wound me, Makoto.”  
  
“Good,” Hanamiya says. He turns over to kiss Imayoshi on the collar, hard enough that a bruise should form come morning. “That’s exactly what I want.”


	17. hydrangeas (imahana, 1960s au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in 1960s japan aka that time when all the student demonstrations were happening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR3) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22341.html?thread=13030981#cmt13030981)

There isn’t much to be said about the mess of a campaign boiling up on this hot summer’s day: the students are marching and the school is under siege and Imayoshi is watching, ever-present smile not budging one bit even as he sees Hanamiya storm up the steps towards him with the sort of energy reserved only for the most urgent of matters.  
  
Which is: “What the fuck, you bastard, you stood me up.”  
  
“I merely arrived early and decided my time was best spent somewhere else,” Imayoshi says, with all the sincerity of the principal currently being barricaded inside his office, which is to say, none. “ _You_  were the one who was late, Makoto.”  
  
“Whatever,” Hanamiya says, indicating towards the noise coming their way. “I’m gonna be late for class if we don’t hurry up.”  
  
“I doubt the professor would care very much about tardiness at this time of the year.”  
  
“You’re a fucking senior.”  
  
Imayoshi stands up to follow him, pushing through the crowd that’s beginning to form to the left of them, a slogan almost knocking his glasses askew. Hanamiya pushes the kid out of the way; Imayoshi barely catches him doing it, but it creates enough of a commotion for people to step aside. Someone yells something about the bourgeoisie; they glide through the chants and banter, slipping out towards the path down to the cafeteria, and Imayoshi feels—is that what being  _touched_  by a romantic gesture feels like?—when he sees Hanamiya stuff his hands into his pockets like a petulant child.  
  
-  
  
“It’s completely stupid,” Hanamiya says, after class is over and he’s found Imayoshi waiting on the bench outside the law building, a plastic bag sitting next to him. Imayoshi throws him a can of juice; Hanamiya catches it and frowns. “You can’t hear jack shit with all the noise outside. They’d be more useful protesting in front of a shrine asking the gods to smite the government.”  
  
Imayoshi smiles. “Oh? Do I detect a hint of anti-revolutionary thought in your words?”  
  
“Oh, fuck off.” But he finishes Imayoshi’s drink anyway, tossing the can into a nearby bin. “Where are we going anyway?”  
  
“Downtown,” Imayoshi replies. “There’s a new bookstore I want to check out.”  
  
Hanamiya rolls his eyes, but when Imayoshi gets up and starts walking not even the rowdy noise coming from behind the building can drown out how quick Hanamiya’s footsteps are catching up to his.  
  
-  
  
There’s a girl Imayoshi had been seeing on-and-off last year that Momoi had introduced to him, during one of those parties she used to drag him along to when they attended the same classes together. He doesn’t go to those anymore, and neither does Ayaka, who works at a cafe not far from where Imayoshi did his summer internship at a small legal firm. They’d have coffee together, talk about movies, sometimes taking that talk to bed. It had never developed into much more than that, though neither had really tried for it to.  
  
She has a boyfriend studying English Literature at Waseda now who Imayoshi’s seen a couple times before, the kind who’s always incorrectly quoting one of those beatnik poets and handing out pamphlets for the latest rally or underground concert. Kind of awkwardly charming, kind of not the type of person Imayoshi would find himself drawn to, but he still goes to that cafe sometimes.  
  
“You’re seeing an underclassman now?”  
  
“You could say that.”  
  
Ayaka smiles at him through the tall glass of iced tea, gentle, a little too knowing even for Imayoshi’s liking. Momoi would call it a woman’s intuition (perhaps somehow connected to the same way she’d not-so-accidentally wound up in her own current relationship). Imayoshi is not telepathic, no matter how much others might see him to be (an image that he does nothing to deny or encourage), but.  
  
In any case, it’s not an expression he’d see on Hanamiya’s face any day, that’s for sure. “For you to say it like that, Imayoshi-san, they must be a real keeper.”  
  
 _…You could say that too._  
  
-  
  
Imayoshi rents his own place, having moved out of the dorms (which by now have become a den of havoc; besides, applying for a private room would just be asking for unwanted attention in this atmosphere) last semester now that he doesn’t have so many classes to attend anymore. He finds Hanamiya outside when he arrives home, slouched against the walls, his hair brushing the hydrangeas spilling over from the garden next door. It’s a good look, Imayoshi wants to say, but he could save that for later.  
  
Hanamiya doesn’t say anything when Imayoshi glances at the edges of the wooden bento boxes peeking out of his bag, but the brief glance away from Imayoshi’s face and the faint trace of pink on his cheeks is all that Imayoshi had wanted to see anyway.


	18. anywhere but home (nijihimu, vampire au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> of vampires and longing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR3) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22341.html?thread=12738373#cmt12738373)

you met him at a cafe you used to work at, some years ago. he’d always come in at night, hood drawn, ordering a latte he would always take to the window and sit with, never drinking but a sip each time. before long you are wondering if he only comes in to look at you, to talk to you; it would not be unusual, with a face like yours, to reel in people like that.  
  
(you think he’s handsome too, toned muscles and nice smile and all. but something about him is guarded and anxious even when he blushes when you call out his name, the wistful look he dons when he stirs his coffee while looking out the window bringing back faraway memories.)  
  
he’s not all that hard to read compared to some other people, until the day you finally give him your number and tell him to wait after work.  
  
you met him at a cafe you used to work at, some years ago. you don’t remember its name anymore, though nothing matters any more—not the memories his touch took from you, nor what he puts you through night after night, hesitantly at first, before you had expressed adamantly that this is what you wanted.  
  
-  
  
a snapshot of a life stolen: your parents far away, not even knowing if you are alive or dead; your brother in mourning for someone he thought he’d known; your past littered with broken promises and broken people and things never attainable to begin with.  
  
“don’t you want to go home?” he sometimes asks, hesitantly, in the small hours of the night while he caresses every goosebump on your skin, the bruises on your body he tries to mitigate but sometimes fails to. you laugh and bring him into your arms, fingers pressed in the small of his back as he goes in for your neck again, gasping in as much pain as pleasure. were you someone else your breath might have more than hitched at the whisper of magic on your collar or the grazing of sharp teeth on your lips, but in truth this is better than the reality you have to return to come morning. “am i keeping you away?”  
  
the moonlight washes over his skin, smooth and unlined and too pale. you wonder what he would look like tanned in real life, like he does in the faded family portrait in his wallet, but you know you will never see it.  
  
“i don’t have anywhere to go back to,” you tell him, afterwards, when he’s resting his head on your chest after tracing kisses up and down your ribs, after the bruises are set and tender under the ring you still wear around your neck. “not like you.”  
  
maybe it was bitter, or cruel, having him tense up on you and his fingers curling into fists next to you. you feel the rustle of fabric beneath, feel the chilly touch of his skin now that you are not in the reverie of lovemaking anymore. you do not know if vampires cry—you have never seen him at it. you suppose he may simply kill you if he ever tires of his, if this is all that you were meant to be to him, a stepping stone, as in the rest of your life.  
  
it would be too easy, you surmise, but then you feel his hand over yours.  
  
(you suppose it is cruel, with the earnestness he carries about him even in your presence, even in this kind of half-life, always hiding, always left wanting more, but never giving in to doing what you had wanted him to in the first place.)  
  
so you take his hand, lacing your fingers with his. you lie there, eyes open, staring into the ceiling as he does, until dawn forces him away from you again.


	19. people die if they are killed (imahana, shinigami au)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR4) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/23665.html?thread=13886065#cmt13886065)

“I don’t need you telling me how to do it,” Makoto growls, pushing Imayoshi’s hand away. “We’re not in school anymore.”  
  
“People die if they are killed,” Imayoshi says, still smiling, still guiding Makoto’s hand and the long handle of the scythe towards their unsuspecting victim. “I just want you to remember that. Don’t fuck up.”  
  
Were Makoto less knowledgeable of how Imayoshi works he would ask something like,  _why the fuck are you so insufferable, you bespectacled bastard,_  but doing so would only invite more of the sort of thing that comes out of his mouth. He raises the scythe and swings.  
  
Imayoshi isn’t wrong. Makoto watches the man twitch and fall to the ground, a wisp of something leaving his body as his muscles contract, then still. But there’s no cause to give him any praise for that.  
  
-  
  
Makoto prefers busying himself in the library when he’s not on a mission, preferably far, far away from the prying senses of Mister Four-Eyes. Though as luck would have it, that’s exactly how Imayoshi likes to spend his pastime, as well.  
  
Of course humans die when they are killed. That’s what shinigami are supposed to  _do_ ; Makoto’s not the fucking Easter Bunny, and neither is Imayoshi (an image that sends shudders down his entire body). Guide the souls to wherever they’re supposed to go and all that. It’s boring, the theoretical knowledge and the endless yapping of the higher-ups asking for quotas and records and all that administrative bullshit. Makoto knows what he’s doing, and it’s so glaringly obvious that the council members have been out of actually working the field for so long they have no clue whatsoever as to what’s going on below.  
  
He flips another page in annoyance, having taken in exactly zilch since Imayoshi had decided to sit across from him. Imayoshi even had the gall to start  _doodling_ , instead of doing anything marginally useful, probably just to spite Makoto. He’d been like this ever since they’d been assigned upperclassmen as mentors two years ago. All the useful advice he’d imparted upon Makoto had been—well. He wouldn’t say he’d not picked up a few things here and there, but the fact remains that Imayoshi is Imayoshi even after both of them have graduated and moved on to active duty.  
  
(Makoto knows that technically, shinigami can’t harm each other with the weapons they’re given, but it doesn’t stop him from fantasizing several times a day about cutting Imayoshi’s head off and mounting it on his wall like a neat trophy.)  
  
“Don’t you have better things to do,” he says finally, knowing that whatever he can say (or won’t say) isn’t going to help him any. Imayoshi looks up from his half-slouch, the slight upturn of his lips unsettling.  _No,_  Makoto revises in his head.  _No beheading._  He’s not so sure he wants to see that face hanging from his room for the next couple centuries, despite another, smaller voice in the back of his head protesting otherwise. “Like, go bother Susa or something. Don’t you have a mission an hour?”  
  
“I’m touched to know you’ve memorized my schedule so well.”  
  
“Piss off.”   
  
“Now,” Imayoshi replies, leaning in, the smile on his face decidedly more fox-like than ever. “I think you’d be rather interested in what I have for you, so perhaps you can stand to have me here for another minute, hm?”  
  
Makoto looks up, trying his best (which is not very) to keep his voice disinterested. “What.”  
  
He feels a bump against his elbow. The paper Imayoshi had been doodling on had somehow slid right next to him—and beneath, as he thumbs open the letter, a thicker sort of parchment.  _Council Minutes_ —oh?  
  
“Good luck,” Imayoshi says, easy as he pleases as he slides out of his chair. Makoto stares at him as he leaves, his cloak swirling past the corner and disappearing. He looks back down, quickly scanning the comments, and slips the parchment into his sleeve before the librarian comes back around. It’s the real thing; Makoto could feel the weight of it on him as he leaves his seat a few minutes after, heading straight back to the dormitories where he knows Seto is still nappings.  
  
Despite his best efforts, he could feel a half-smile come to his lips.  
  
_Now_  this  _will be interesting._


	20. who's a good sandwich (aokaga, domestic)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR4) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/23665.html?thread=14247793#cmt14247793)

“Hey, Bakagami.”  
  
Kagami stops writing, but only to shove his earbuds further in.  
  
“Oi.”  
  
Algebraic formulae swim across his vision like bizarre sea creatures, melting down the sides of his notebook (filled with more chicken-scrawl and doodles than anything academically useful) and crawling along the edge of his desk. He gives up; surely whatever Aomine has to say can’t be more confounding than his math homework.  
  
“What.”  
  
Aomine’s half-hanging off the top bunk, cross-legged, clutching a pillow. He’s staring at his phone with the kind of concentration reserved only for basketball or gravure magazines, not for the homework he said he would do. Kagami waits.  
  
“Is it possible to feel like a sandwich?”  
  
“…What?”  
  
“Is it possible,” Aomine repeats, slowly—as if reprimanding Kagami for not having listened properly the first time instead of him having said something completely inane—and looks up, patting the fluffy white pillow on his stomach. “Like, look…a mattress…is just one giant pillow for the body. So, if I put another pillow on top, won’t I be a sandwich?”  
  
If it had been to ask for a one-on-one study break down at the court—since Aomine hasn’t touched a single page of his homework since he came over—Kagami wouldn’t have said no. He wouldn’t have said no to many things to get away from the dreary wasteland of his mind trying to decipher ancient Greek letters. But: “What the fuck, Ahomine.”  
  
“I’m asking you a fucking question?”  
  
Kagami exhales, pushing the papers and textbooks away from him. “Look, if you’re hungry, you can just say so.”  
  
“I said I  _feel_  like a sandwich, not I  _want_  a sandwich.”  
  
“Whatever,” Kagami says. He stands up and grabs his keys. “ _I’m_  hungry, and I’ll be damned if you’re just gonna yap about sandwiches next to me without me having any.”  
  
-  
  
Neither of them bring their homework to Maji Burger (Kagami’s mental functions have pretty much given out for the night, and he’s not quite sure Aomine has any to begin with.)   
  
“Look,” Aomine says, way too seriously, as he carefully unwraps a teriyaki burger. “People…are like sandwiches.”  
  
Beneath the table, Kagami texts a desperate plea to Kuroko, cc’d to Momoi.  
  
“I don’t mean literally,” Aomine continues, prying the bun off the burger (Kagami stares in horror, moving his own pile of fifty cheeseburgers a few centimeters back from harm’s way.) “Sometimes you’re in-between two choices, yeah? Two people. Two…spaces. Two buns. So like, you’re all this stuff—the teriyaki sauce, the meat, the works.”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
Kagami knows he isn’t the smartest when it comes to books, but this—if Aomine’s on something, Momoi would probably know, and if she knows she would probably tell him, right?   
  
Right?  
  
“And sometimes—“ Aomine continues, replacing the bun with a dramatic sigh, “—sometimes, it’s a good thing. Being a sandwich. You’re all warm and toasty inside—“  
  
Kagami’s phone buzzes, and he looks down to see Kuroko’s timely reply:  _I think he’s trying to confess to you, Kagami-kun. Aomine-kun can get kind of weird with his metaphors._  
  
“Are you trying to confess to me?” Kagami says out loud, incredulous.  
  
Aomine fumbles his burger. “What?”  
  
“N-nothing.”  
  
Another buzz.  _Try doing this._ , and then a link.  
  
“Oi, are you even listening—“  
  
Kagami reaches over reluctantly, after dismembering one burger, and places one bun each around Aomine’s ears.  
  
Aomine freezes, looking up at him like a cornered cat. “What the fuck, Bakagami.”  
  
“Look, Kuroko told me to do this, and then you’d shut up,” Kagami says, his face very quickly heating up at realizing too late he’d probably been duped. Aomine looks offended at first, but it quickly turns into something else as Kagami leans in even further. “S-say it.”  
  
“Say what.”  
  
Kagami inhales.  
  
-  
  
_[sent] kuroko what the fucking_  
_[received] I will trust that whatever happened resulted in a suitably happy ending._  
_[sent] what_  
_[received] Since Aomine-kun has not come crying to my doorstep yet, I mean._  
_[sent] kuroko i hate you he’s so stupid he cant even figure out idiot sandwich_  
_[received] Which means you’re well-suited for each other._  
_[sent] KUROKO!!!!!_  
_[received] Good night, Kagami-kun._  
_[received] Also, congratulations._


	21. love has teeth (imahana, monsters au)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR4) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/23665.html?thread=14315377#cmt14315377)

you know,  
there used to be more of us long ago: an old story,  
surely one you’ve been told.  
  
“they come on winter nights and windy skies  
asking for warmth and reprieve from the chill;  
_don’t let them in,_  the old tale goes—  
_or to the devil you’ll be sold._ ”  
  
“surely people are foolish enough to believe that,” you say,  
a wicked sparkle in your eye. “a lie to weed out the weak.”  
there are other ways to reach the heart;  
oh yes, there are other ways to reach in deep.  
  
you would kiss him at twilight, the burn of sunset leaving your skin.  
you would kiss him at dawn-break, your hand slipping away,  
leave him wanting for more; and he will follow.  
with knife and smile he will follow, in the cold.  
  
there is no need to bite for long, when in fact  
a simple solution would suffice:  
you enter through an open window, veins breathing ice,  
take a look at his face and announce:  
  
“i’ve arrived,” you say, a lie between your teeth. “flesh and bone,  
whatever sins i’ve committed i’m here to atone.”  
(you remember the night from long ago when this too happened to you,  
a memory forever you would keep.)  
  
you knock away his knife and press his smile to yours,  
a storm brewing between your lips. move a hand towards his neck,  
pale in the moonlight and midnight breeze,  
lulling him to sleep.  
  
and then  
he bites, deep.  
“surely one should know by now,” he says with sharp white teeth,  
“never to kiss what you cannot see.”  
  
(he knows  
you used to be someone else, long ago: your story  
he penned in charcoal ink, waiting to be told.)


	22. siren song (nijihimu, sirens au)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR4) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/23665.html?thread=14497137#cmt14497137)
> 
> **There is character death!!**

_so listen, boy, you may take to the sea,_  
and freely chase to faraway lands,  
but beware, beware how the sea could take thee.  
  
you remember well the lessons you’ve been taught,  
pulling in the waves, each callous on your hands  
a warning: this is how you will go in the end  
like your father and his father before him  
beneath the waves on some stormy night  
hands to the mast until you slip out of sight.  
  
in the spring you leave home for the first time,  
a rambunctious laughter echoing through the wooden beams,  
your eyes never leaving the starboard through ale and dance.  
neither pirate nor storm would take you  
under the sun-flare or calm of a star-dotted sky,  
the clouds hazy and fast in passing you by.  
  
(there are old sailors,   
and bold sailors,   
but never old bold sailors.  
the lanterns sway in the night, under the stars,  
calling you home again  
to the cliffside—)  
  
a fortnight passes before you see a distant shoreline,  
jagged rock reaching up to heaven from the depths.  
its cavernous guise a place for treasure  
or so say your crew and he—oh—  
so say the voice soft in the breeze.  
so say the voice rising up from the sea.  
  
they go one by one as you watch, transfixed:  
each jumping towards the sea’s embrace, far from anchor  
the ship drifting slow. you do not move from your post  
in defiance, or in fear—  
and when you finally see him in the shallow pools  
you remember what it is the sailors rue:  
  
_your body in the deep waters, far from home_  
your head in the clouds,  
laughter in your ears as you’re devoured to the bone.  
  
perhaps it is not true, you think, lowering yourself into the sea,  
reaching for his salt-streaked hair, long and dark,  
hiding something, glistening still in the waning sun.   
he laughs and shies away, hand brushing yours as he swims further into the rocks.  
you do not take notice of at all, as you follow,  
of the skulls beneath your feet brittle and hollow.  
  
he smiles at you with a loving gaze,  
so loving; you ignore the blood in the water, the sharks circling in,  
here in the summer sea. his hands are warm when he takes you in, and  
you, drinking in his beauty and the shimmering tail,  
leans towards a whisper thrumming across the air:  
“won’t you stay for a little while, here?”  
  
it would not take more than a single note to take away from you  
of the lessons you’ve been taught; all of them multitudinous and  
fading as soon as you push your body against his,  
laughter fading into the echoes of the sea,  
_it does not feel so bad now, does it?_  
you smile as he brings you down.  
  
he kisses you as the song lulls you to sleep.  
you do not feel anything when he  
presses his lips against your collarbone,  
bites down, once,   
twice,  
the water turns to ice.  
  
so listen, boy, the story goes:  
_don’t sail so close to shore._  
keep your eyes on the vast wide sea,  
keep your eyes on the mast,  
keep your eyes on the stars and skies,  
or you’ll be drowned by lies.


	23. to the fireflies (akamido, 1960s au)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR4) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/23665.html?thread=14551665#cmt14551665)

Midorima steps out of the train coughing, the air thick with cigarette smoke and dust. He makes his way towards the exit, a handkerchief covering half his face, his height parting the crowds easier than he’d thought possible, and yet they just keep coming.  
  
If this is what Tokyo is like, well, he shouldn’t need to get used to it yet.  
  
He fumbles out his wallet for the address as he is ejected into the busy streets in front of Shibuya Station along with what seems like millions of others, busy office workers on their lunch breaks, strollers, dogs, the smell of grilled meat from the vendors. Midorima feels his stomach rumble in displeasure, but he doesn’t have time for that now.  
  
The office building is brand new, installed with elevators (that Midorima would never admit he was nervous to stand in, awkwardly towering over the crowd of salarymen running late to their cubicles.) He exits the top floor, clutching his briefcase close, and knocks on the lone door he sees.  
  
He waits.  
  
(He touches the inside of his pocket, making sure the folded crimson handkerchief is still there.)  
  
A moment later the door opens, revealing Akashi dressed impeccably as always. Midorima had made sure to wear his Sunday best, but even then he feels horribly out of place standing in this place, sparkling new windows and concrete walls, the rumble of the train beneath his feet when he’s on the ground, miles away from the rice paddies and cicadas and quiet music in the wind. He opens his mouth, but it is Akashi, as always, who speaks first.  
  
“Hello, Shintarou,” Akashi says, pulling him in for a kiss. His face colors, but there’s nobody to see them anyway. And so Midorima, relaxing for the first time since arriving, lets him. “You’re early.”  
  
-  
  
It’s not that Midorima hates the city; rather, he’s intrigued: at how it’s changed so much in so little time. His family had, at one point, lived near the university when his father had taught. It was only the elder Midorima’s illness that had brought them to the countryside, for the fresh air and clean streams and away from the noise and crowds.  
  
He’d met Akashi then, when both were nine, in-between the rice paddies. Akashi had been accompanied by his mother and family butler then, and Midorima was alone, his sister still too young to wander outside even accompanied.   
  
(Akashi had smiled and asked if he wanted to be friends, in a way that Midorima now would still have found no reason to reject, no small feat in the eyes of others.)  
  
“How are you liking it here?” Akashi is saying, drawing him back from his memories. Midorima is slightly surprised there is nobody to pour tea as he remembers there being, back in the summer mansion on the outskirts of Midorima’s village. There is a window overlooking the city, the station and criss-crossing railway and tram lines visible behind rising buildings. “Although I suppose it is too early to ask, you don’t look all that impressed, Shintarou.”  
  
“I am,” Midorima answers. “I just. You look different, that is all.”  
  
“It’s different here,” Akashi says, as a way of replying. He gestures at their surroundings: bookshelves like Midorima remembers, a fax machine sitting in the corner. He resists the urge to stand up and touch it, mostly because Akashi is still looking at him in a way that implies he knows exactly what is going through his head right now. “And well, I should think of dressing differently for this climate.”  
  
“Gifu isn’t that hot.” He’s still looking out the window, wondering what it would look like at night-time. Midorima’s mother owns a car, though it’s high time they exchange it for something newer; still, simply imagining the city lights is quite something. Nagoya, where he studies, is large, but there is something about Tokyo—or about Akashi in Tokyo, rather—that draws him in like no other. “It’s easier to study without so much noise.”  
  
Akashi smiles, leaning in. Midorima stills, waiting for the question he knows has been coming all along. “Aren’t you interested coming here, Shintarou?“  
  
“You know I haven’t finished my studies yet,” Midorima points out.  _I don’t have a company to inherit that puts me in this place, either._  “When that is over—“  
  
“Unless you are going abroad, in which case you would have told me already, there is no other place in the country like here.”  
  
“The city’s changing, yes,” Midorima concurs. “It’s not the only thing changing so fast, I suppose, but. You are right about that as well.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
Sometimes he reads in the newspaper about the so-called great financial miracle, the wars in countries too far away for him to put on his mind, the occasional sighting of an airplane above no longer meaning anything menacing. It is not as if he is still afraid of the crowds, of the city air, but some things—  
  
( _Look_ , Akashi had said once, when they had both sneaked out of their houses at great personal risk. He’d been pointing at the night sky; whatever it really was, airplane or shooting star or alien spaceship, had long been erased from Midorima’s mind until only their words remained between them.  _Mother said you should always make a wish when you see one._  
  
_I wish we can stay like this forever,_  Midorima remembers saying, a childish wish, his hand gripping Akashi’s. There was something else he’d liked to have said then, but the smile on Akashi’s face had made him forget that, too—)  
  
“I don’t know if I will like it here,” he says simply.  
  
“Shintarou,” Akashi replies. “I don’t want to wait so long to see you each time.”  
  
He still does it occasionally, Midorima’s found through the course of their communications after secondary school—the commanding tone in Akashi’s voice when he means business and even when he doesn’t, the questions that are in reality written into law. Midorima has his own pride, but sometimes, as with now, he’s slowly found that Akashi is simply stating things Midorima himself would balk at saying outright.  
  
Like this: gazing into Akashi’s eyes to see something other than want, their nine-year-old selves trapped behind. He swallows, remembering the taste of tea staining the back of his throat, bitter, then turning sweet. “I do not want that either.”  
  
“Then,” Akashi says, reaching over the table for his hand, surprisingly gentle. “I think we have come to a mutual agreement.”


	24. here and home (liuhimu, nba au)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nba himuro x cba liu _(:3/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR4) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/23665.html?thread=14593137#cmt14593137)

It’s never going to be easy trying to decipher someone like Himuro Tatsuya, Wei’s found through the years. A sort of enigma that’s always lurking behind his perfectly placid facade. He’s seen enough of the cracks through their playing together that it’s bordering unsurprising when he finds he can tell if Tatsuya angry or annoyed now (though thankfully these incidents too have lessened over time), but still.  
  
Especially now, with an ocean and then some separating them. He’s falling asleep at his desk, Skype open at another ungodly hour. Tatsuya’s not angry, or sad, but the incredibly shitty connection from behind the firewall is just about enough to do it for Wei.   
  
“You look annoyed,” Tatsuya says, amused, and Wei sighs. “Internet acting up again?”  
  
“Yeah, just.”  
  
Something something VPNs…he’s never paid much attention to the news other than the sports and music sections, but the recent crackdown has left them with much to be desired. Behind him, one of his roommates grunts something vulgar in Cantonese, and Wei bites back the urge to shoot an insult back. Tatsuya would just start laughing, and then the whole fucking  _room_  would wake up, repeat ad infinitum. Besides, his Cantonese is nowhere near good enough yet to fend off two or three people ganging up on him at the same time.  
  
…God, he doesn’t want to be here right now. Camp has been going well, and he feels very much ready for the practice match tomorrow, but. He wants to be with Tatsuya, who’s sitting on his balcony, laptop propped up against his knees. It’s sunny where he is, and even through the grainy image of the screen the sunlight is still bright enough to be just a little bit blinding.  
  
(Wei wonders how much an apartment like this must cost in New fucking York—Dongguan hasn’t yet experienced the same sort of meteoric housing bubble craze like Guangzhou or Shenzhen, but who knows—but maybe he’ll find out next time he’s on break.)  
  
“How’s training camp?”  
  
“It’s alright,” Wei replies. “Same old story. It’s ending next Wednesday, and then we’ll be on the road again.”  
  
“Chengdu, right?”  
  
Wei nods. “You’ve been watching?”  
  
“Yeah.” Tatsuya smiles, and it’s enough to stall the urge of sleep in him, for a little while longer. Wei doesn’t know why he bothers sometimes—as exciting as it is for him, the pervasive notion of the American leagues being the most exciting, the most brilliant, all-eyes-on-them is still hard to shake in this part of the world. Maybe it’s better he’s in the so-called basketball city of China, sinking into the atmosphere before jetting off again, but maybe he still watches every Knicks game he can catch just to see a glimpse of Tatsuya in 1080p if he’s lucky. “Good luck.”  
  
The damned curve of his lips, even with the lag, is just too much.  
  
“Thanks,” Wei says, and it’s with some horror that he sees Tatsuya’s smile widen at the fact that he can see Wei’s face reddening even in the horrible lighting. “Uh—“  
  
“It’s almost two,” Tatsuya points out, kindly relieving Wei of further embarrassment. But he says that as if  _he_  doesn’t stay up until four in the goddamn morning whenever it’s his turn to talk, passing out in front of his computer on more occasions than Wei could count anymore. “You should get some rest, Wei.”  
  
A traitorous yawn escapes his mouth; even if he were to protest, Wei feels as if he probably doesn’t have the mental capability to deal with Tatsuya baiting him at this time of the night. “…Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Tatsuya—”  
  
At that, Tatsuya blows a kiss at the screen, a last-minute act of evil that leaves Wei’s mouth gaping even as the internet suddenly cuts out, stranding their conversation for the moment.  
  
_…Figures._  
  
He buries his head in his arms, ignoring the whispered jibes from above of  _stop eyefucking your boyfriend and go to sleep, Liu._  
  
“…Goddamnit, Tatsuya.”


	25. inner sanctum (garciraki, edo period au)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR5) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/24808.html?thread=15294184#cmt15294184): masako in the inner temple courtyard with the fountain pen.

Alex doesn’t really like coming here; the atmosphere makes her stand out, in a place where she already stands out by virtue of appearance and gender. All of that could be discounted for, if not for the fact that even the monks who wilted under Masako’s temper and threats do not hesitate to make their discomfort clear on a regular basis.  
  
“ _I’m_  the one visiting,” she’d say, waving them away as she practices her writing. “She lives here. Are you going to drive me out, as well?”  
  
The head monk mutters something unintelligible, but they leave from where they came, through the left door. Masako inhales, the scent of sandalwood incense filling her lungs, and places her pen back down on the slip of parchment. The Buddha and his attendants upon the altar stare out serenely into the open space, the dark walkways on either side adorned with a single torch each, unlit in the mid-afternoon sun. Alex is standing near the altar, looking at the flowers.  
  
“What are today’s flowers called?” she asks, pointing at a bouquet of chrysanthemums. “They’re lovely.”  
  
“ _Kiku_ ,” Masako replies. She watches Alex bend down to smell them, then step away. “I’ll show you how to write it. Can you really smell anything with the incense?”  
  
“Not really,” Alex admits, laughing a little. She rejoins Masako at the table in the courtyard, plopping down on a woven bamboo cushion. “Your handwriting’s getting good.”  
  
“Better,” Masako corrects. “It was already good in the first place, for writing Japanese.”  
  
“I mean the fountain pen.”  
  
Masako places the pen in Alex’s hand. True, she had never written with anything like this before coming to Dejima nearly a year ago with her uncle’s retinue. It seems the westerners preferred pens like this, their writing thinner and smaller on the paper—she had found it ugly at first, and hard to read, but both of them have since improved. The half-finished copy of a page of  _Don Quixote_  sitting on the table stands testament to that. “Here, copy this.”  
  
She watches Alex’s face contort in concentration as she traces the lines over once, then does it again on a blank corner of the page. Her handwriting is wobbly, but passable. Alex’s spectacles start to slide as she leans in further; Masako reaches out, gently pushing them back to place.  
  
“Thanks,” Alex murmurs, reaching up to touch Masako’s hand. A moment passes without either saying a word, and then, “…Is this any good?”  
  
Masako hums, not letting go just yet. “Try it again with a brush.”


	26. joyriding (nijihimu, victorian era au)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR5) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/24808.html?thread=15282920#cmt15282920): nijimura in the engine room with the missing eyepatch.

“You know,” Shuuzou says, his voice almost drowned out by the rattling, “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.”  
  
“Fuck good ideas,” Tatsuya replies, still fiddling with the engine. “This is a  _great_  idea.”  
  
Shuuzou, after some deliberation, supposes he is right.  
  
At least Tatsuya hadn’t gotten the idea of hijacking a zeppelin (the mere thought of flying skeeves the hell out of Shuuzou, and it’s not like either of them have the expertise to land something like that.) People like them belong on the ground, where it’s easier to not entertain the thought that he’ll accidentally fall out of a carriage miles up in the air.   
  
Still, the steam is annoying—Tatsuya stands up, wiping away the sweat from his brow, and looks back at Shuuzou. “You find it yet?”  
  
“No,” Shuuzou says. “Maybe you dropped it back in the carriage.”  
  
The train makes a turn, and Tatsuya stumbles a little, but holds on enough that he doesn’t fall over. He’s gotta admit, Tatsuya looks pretty damn good in a conductor’s uniform, shining buttons and tailored jacket and all. It’s easy enough for him to pass as anything as long as he turns the charm on, and that enough had fooled the stationmasters a few stops back. Nobody’s been bold enough to impersonate a conductor and take off with an entire train before—not until them, anyway.  
  
Tatsuya eyes him appreciatively as he feeds more coal into the boiler. “Nice look.”  
  
Shuuzou rolls his eyes; he knows he’s got coal dust all over his face, probably some on his sleeves too. “Yeah, yeah, keep looking.”  
  
(The real conductor and engineer wouldn’t miss their outfits, really, being knocked out and tied up in the luggage hold, but that’s another story altogether.)  
  
“It’s not that important anyway,” Tatsuya says as they approach the bridge, the pines lining either side giving away to open fields. If he were to look outside, Shuuzou knows, the wild heather would be in bloom at this time of the year. But they don’t have time for that right now. “Maybe they won’t lock us up if they catch us, since it’s—“  
  
“One of your signature looks, yeah, I know.” Shuuzou leans over to kiss him, ignoring his halfhearted protests of  _Shuu, I can’t look presentable like this_. “I like you better like this.”  
  
“Stealing a train belonging to your old boss and taking off through the Scottish wilderness together, or me in this uniform?”  
  
“The latter,” Shuuzou replies wryly. Akashi would not hesitate to pack them off to the gallows (or at least, have them spend a few good years behind bars) if he catches them—and he probably would, sooner or later. They can’t keep this up forever, unless of course, they steal some other ride that would get them far away from this place and homebound.  
  
But for now they’re free, so why not enjoy the ride? The train rattles as it crosses the stone bridge, the water rushing beneath them urgent. Tatsuya’s looking out the window at the receding field of wildflowers, and he’s got Tatsuya’s eyepatch burning a hole inside his pocket, safe from harm. Safe for the moment until Tatsuya figures it out.  
  
Shuuzou thinks, as Tatsuya looks back to grin at him, that he’ll keep it for a while longer.


	27. meet cute (mayuniji, meeting at a wedding)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR5) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/24808.html?thread=15507944#cmt15507944): Mayuzumi in the shop with the three-piece suit

After all these years, it’s surprising that Akashi still remembers Mayuzumi enough to send him an invitation letter to his wedding.  
  
Scratch that—it’s not surprising, per se, just immensely annoying. It’s the reason why Mayuzumi is here in the mall (instead of at his favorite cafe, or at home reading) last minute, waiting to pick up a new suit. Anything he currently has would be too shabby for the likes of the brat.  
  
(Why the fuck he’s masochistic enough to go through such trials for his f—former teammates will be a question he never wants to answer.)  
  
The store is empty save for several high-schoolers nosing about near the door, and some guy who came in to fix a rip in his jacket. Mayuzumi sits down next to him, settling in to the comfortable leather. The guy’s kind of cute, but nice chairs and hot guys won’t take away the feeling of his wallet being a couple thousand yen lighter. At least, he could read until the clerk comes out again.  
  
“Nijimura-san?”  
  
Mayuzumi looks up, frowning. The guy next to him—Nijimura, it seems—stands up, almost tripping over Mayuzumi’s outstretched foot in the process. Shit.  
  
“Sorry,” he murmurs, going back to his book. It’s not as if Mayuzumi walks around like a human invisibility field anymore the way he does on the court, but like it or not, the misdirection thing seems to be stuck with him for good.  
  
Not like Nijimura seems to have noticed. Mayuzumi watches him pay and leave the store in a hurry, as if late to something. He goes back to his novel, flipping through the pages slower this time.  
  
If there was something about the name that made him pause, Mayuzumi doesn’t really care to think further or it.  
  
-  
  
Until a couple hours later, when Mayuzumi’s arrived—fashionably late, he’d told Akashi, who just smiled in a way that promised divine retribution later—and finds himself sitting across from one Nijimura Shuuzou, former captain of the Teikou Middle School Basketball Team and actually One Really Hot Guy In That Suit, Damn.  
  
“Uh.” He says, as a waiter offers him a flute of champagne to start. Mayuzumi isn’t sure it’s a good idea to drink this early, but then again maybe Akashi had put sedatives in everyone’s drinks to ensure maximum compliance. Or something. He swallows, noticing the comfortably tight fit of the fabric around Nijimura’s shoulders and chest. “So you’re  _that_  Nijimura. Akashi…talked about you sometimes.”  
  
Nijimura frowns. “You’re—“  
  
“—The guy you tripped over in the store earlier today.”   
  
“Oh?” His face contorts into something akin to a smile, somewhat embarrassed. “Oh.  _You’re_  Mayuzumi—ah, I see what Akashi means now with the K—”  
  
Mayuzumi groans. If shitty nostalgia is what he’s here for (well, it can’t be for anything else considering the group of people congregated on this beautifully manicured lawn, but one can hope) he’d rather leave.“Can we not mention him now?”  
  
Someone walks up to their table and greets Nijimura, they exchange a few words, and someone else a few chairs down shouts out a greeting. Nerd, meet hot popular jock. Mayuzumi wonders if he could get away with finishing the fifteenth volume of A Clockwork Apple before dinner ends, but then he just  _has_  to look towards Nijimura again.  
  
“Right,” Nijimura says with an apologetic grin. “Sorry.”  
  
…Why the hell did Akashi make him sit away from the rest of Rakuzan, anyway? Mayuzumi could see Mibuchi and Nebuya laughing over something on the other side of the lawn. It’s bad enough that he’d rather sit with his old team than stew in embarrassment and this mounting, completely random attraction towards another terrible person relating back to Akashi Seijuurou.  
  
Wait.  
  
“Those are his—your old teammates, right?” Nijimura says, indicating towards Mibuchi’s table. “They look pretty nice.”  
  
“You look great,” Mayuzumi blurts out. Nijimura blinks in his direction, and Mayuzumi instantly feels like dying on the spot. “I—I uh, the tailor did a good job with the jacket. Earlier today.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Whatever,” he mutters, looking away, cursing the fact that his face is probably seventeen different shades of red right now. If he’s lucky, the shitty ambient lighting could hide it for him.  
  
Except when Mayuzumi looks up again, out of the corner of his eye he could see Nijimura looking away as well, the red on his cheeks all too apparent.  
  
_Oh._  
  
“God,” Mayuzumi whispers, burying his face in his hands. “I fucking hate you, Akashi Seijuurou.”


	28. hidden danger (nijiakamayu, magical assassins)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR5) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/24808.html?thread=15032552#cmt15032552): mayuzumi in akashi's house with a knife

If Mayuzumi had to count the number of rumors surrounding Akashi Seijuurou since he’s arrived in town, he would probably need an entire day or two to recite them. It’s an open secret among the local populace that the lord of their land has a penchant for the occult, and some would be as bold to say—after a few drinks, of course—he isn’t even human at all, that he transforms into some monstrous wolf or bear or some such creature in the dark of the night.  
  
That, Mayuzumi thinks, had probably been deliberately spread just to deter anyone from entering the vast estate unannounced. It is not enough to deter an assassin from a neighboring land, that is for certain. Lord Haizaki had promised to pay him handsomely for the deed, and it is not as if Mayuzumi is in any position to turn such an offer down.  
  
He manages to slip in past the guards posted around the perimeter, a feat so easy that he might’ve just been thin air. Misdirection isn’t magic in the strictest sense of the word; as a professional Mayuzumi has certainly dabbled a little in those arts for concealment, but his lack of presence is simply something he’d been born with.  
  
Not unlike whatever it is he instantly feels upon stepping foot into the castle. There’s someone else in here, not Akashi— _his_  presence could certainly be felt everywhere, seeping into the crevices between each block of stone and crack in the floors. Still, Mayuzumi can tell he’s human underneath all the magic.  
  
No—it’s something else.  _Someone_  else, for the matter.  
  
Mayuzumi’s hand strays towards his knife as he takes to the winding stairs. Secret entrances he can’t figure out aside, this is the only one way up and down. He might have more luck trying to fiddle with the false walls and tilted portraits were it not for the feeling that it might be a bad idea with whatever it was hanging around the Akashi household.  
  
Perhaps a guard dog, some monster he’s found and claimed for his own—  
  
Whatever it is, and whatever people may think of him, Mayuzumi takes pride in his work. He can’t back down now even if he’s being followed—if it comes to the worst, he will have to figure out a way to disappear before they catch up to him.  
  
He keeps to the shadows as soon as he reaches the top floor, though to his surprise there are not other sentries walking around. Someone of Akashi’s status and repute would be either very proud of their abilities or very stupid to do such a thing—unfortunately for him, Mayuzumi thinks with a sigh, it’s probably the former.  
  
Then, without warning, something taps his shoulder as he reaches for the ornate doorknob at the very end of the hall.  
  
“Not many people make it this far,” a voice says from behind, and then Mayuzumi finds himself slammed on the floor, sharp fingernails pressing against his throat. He makes no move to disentangle himself; after so long in this business, it takes less than seconds to process the fact that whatever it is has got him for good.   
  
Mayuzumi stares up at the face of the person—no, not a person, he reminds himself—and speaks, carefully as though he might find himself short of a head any moment. The sharp teeth and ears and lack of the Akashi family’s telltale red hair is enough for him to know what’s going on. He’s handsome enough, for a monster—perhaps that’s another reason why Akashi keeps him around. “So, you’re the wolf people talk about.”  
  
He feels nails dig into his skin, drawing blood. “Is that all?”  
  
“Nijimura-san, you can let him go now.”  
  
Mayuzumi feels the pressure disappear from his throat, and he sits up, looking at the man in the half-open door. Akashi Seijuurou is not the tallest of persons, but even if he weren’t here on the floor Mayuzumi thinks he’d feel being towered over all the same. Even if he’s long since resigned himself to a fate like this someday, Akashi’s mismatched eyes looking down on him elicits another sort of feeling altogether.  
  
Nijimura steps aside, but Mayuzumi could see the suspicion written plainly on his face. “I wouldn’t trust him if I were you, Akashi.”  
  
“Not least of all because Haizaki sent him, hm?” Akashi reaches out a hand, as if daring Mayuzumi to take it. “Poisoned gifts aside, a lesser assassin would have not made it to my door.”  
  
“I’m not a gift,” Mayuzumi mutters, looking away. Were he to stare too long into Akashi’s eyes, he thinks, he might be swallowed whole by that gaze. Still, Mayuzumi flinches as Akashi reaches down to tilt the assassin's face towards him, a semblance of a smile playing on his lips.  
  
“That will be for me to decide, Mayuzumi Chihiro.”


	29. into the unknown (midorima & kagami & himuro, otgw au)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR6) Remix of [fill](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22341.html?thread=13364549#cmt13364549) by @ewagan
> 
> warnings: midorima is a frog

Shintarou stares out balefully into the distance from atop the boy’s head, the coolness of the teapot sticky against his skin. He has no recollection how he got here—one moment he’d been perfectly content with sleeping in his usual spot, and the second he’s been picked up by two human kids who look, for all intents and purposes, completely lost.  
  
(Shintarou would say he knows his way around well, but he’s just as lost as either of them in what looks like a huge, sprawling forest.)  
  
In any case, they’re walking a little too fast for him to consider hopping off midway, and so he clings on, listening to them talk.  
  
“…would have a name, they’re just frogs.”  
  
“But things should have names,” the kid beneath him is saying with conviction, his flyaway red hair sticking out everywhere from underneath his makeshift hat. “What if I lose him?”  
  
“You won’t lose him, Taiga,” the other boy says, tugging at his arm gently. “Come on, we need to find a way out of here before it gets dark.”  
  
The air here is silent and mystifyingly so, considering the sort of noises a normal forest would be full of: birdsong, the chirping of insects, squirrels scurrying through the undergrowth and deer in the clearings, all of it is absent as they continue on deeper into the trees. Shintarou could sense the unease in the atmosphere, especially from Taiga, who never stays far from his—brother’s? Shintarou thinks, but he can’t be sure—side.   
  
The younger boy seems to have a healthy dislike of the dark, and Shintarou can’t blame him, really. Except now he’s also dragged into this mess, and hopping off into the doom now seems less inviting than it had been previously.   
  
“Excuse me,” he begins, but it comes out as a loud croak. Taiga jumps, forcing Shintarou to cling on for dear life. “Uh—“  
  
“Taiga, it’s just your frog.”  
  
“Can you be quiet?” Taiga says, poking at one of the frog’s stubby little limbs. Shintarou croaks indignantly, pushing away his hand. “Hey, frog!”  
  
The older boy, whose curtain of hair masks almost the entire the left side of his face, turns towards them patiently. “Maybe he does need a name.“  
  
“I told you, Tatsuya,” Taiga grumbles, then exhales as Tatsuya reaches out and pats him on the shoulder. “Let’s call him Carrot.”  
  
“I resent that,” Shintarou says immediately, but of course it does not get through to either of the boys. Just his luck that he would get picked up by two bumpkins who could not understand him.  
  
“You sure you don’t want to go with something a little more suitable?”  
  
“I like Carrot,” Taiga replies, looking up at Tatsuya. “The name. I like Carrot the frog too, even if he’s noisy.”  
  
“ _You’re_  noisy,” Shintarou mutters, edging away from Taiga’s hand, but Tatsuya grins in approval.  
  
“I suppose Carrot will have to deal with his new name, then.”  
  
The frog could only sigh and resign himself to his new fate as they trudge off through the undergrowth again, conversing quietly, or not at all. Perhaps they will find a way out of this forsaken place soon, and though Shintarou has little reason to trust their navigational skills, he also would rather noisy children as companions than the oppressive silence of the Unknown.


	30. good mornings (aohimu, nba au)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR6) Remix of [fill](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/24808.html?thread=15282664#cmt15282664) by @kiyala

When Himuro wakes up in the morning, the first thing he feels is Aomine’s legs on his, heavy but reassuring, a kind of needed weight in his life considering all the stupid things he’d do without it. Not that Aomine isn’t game to do said stupid things with him as well, such as sleeping in to the point they’d probably have missed the bus out of town if they’d woken up any later.  
  
The bottle of Grey Goose lies empty on the floor, providing an obstacle when he steps aside to avoid it. Aomine’s hand almost immediately shoots out of the covers like some horror movie monster to grab him, somehow detecting the absence of body warmth by his side through deep slumber. “—Don’t leave.”  
  
“We’ll be late,” Himuro reminds him gently, keeping the smile to himself as he watches Aomine roll over and groan. He could already see the resigned look on the coach’s face when they turn up like this at the door, but shit. It’s not like everyone else wouldn’t also turn up hungover to high hell, considering the sort of texts they’d been receiving well into the night, even after both had thrown their phones aside for something a little more private. “Daiki—“  
  
Aomine leans in, pressing a wet kiss on his forearm, the only part of Himuro he could reach without coming entirely out of the covers. Like some kind of lazy house-cat, Himuro thinks. “Nngh.”  
  
“You can kiss more of me if you get out of there, you know.”  
  
“Don’t wanna get out,” Aomine grumbles, sounding like the headache he’s sporting is much worse than Himuro’s. He’s never been good with alcohol, not in the way Himuro is. “Shit, hurts like a motherfucker.”  
  
Kagami would tell him he babies Aomine too much, like he’d babied Murasakibara all the way back in high school, but well, Himuro’s always been better at taking care of others over himself. He leans in, taking in the scent of Aomine’s shampoo—it’s just complimentary hotel shit, but damn if it Aomine doesn’t wear it well. Just enough that it clears his mind a little more. Aomine looks up at him, a little dazed, reaching up to touch his face.   
  
Himuro smiles, resting his face in the crook of Aomine’s neck. “Where do you mean? Want me to kiss it better?”  
  
“Do I start listing?” comes Aomine’s muffled reply as he pulls Himuro back into the covers once more. “Like, my d—“  
  
“ _Daiki._ ”  
  
Perhaps he could’ve hidden his fondness better in any other situation, but in this moment, all wrapped up in Aomine’s arms and the warmth of the blankets, the high of winning still present in the back of his mind and ignoring the probable exasperated knocks that would come to their door soon—well. Himuro can afford to indulge him just a little while longer.


	31. lazarus in absentia (nijihimu, a rondel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR7) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/25713.html?thread=16285297#cmt16285297): 
> 
> I thought: "Perhaps Adelma is the city where you arrive dying and where each finds again the people he has known. This means I, too, am dead." And I also thought: "This means the beyond is not happy."
> 
> \-- Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

 

If he may be gone and gone may he be,  
To some great beyond I know not;  
Yet know that I have not forgot,  
What the dead may give up to me.  
  
Alas, the graveyard lies silently,  
Refusing the pleas I sought.  
I look heavenward where goes my beauty,  
To some great beyond I know not.  
  
Oh! If I find him beyond the sea,  
Where his soul would surely roam free;  
Not deathly sallow in six foot of rot,  
Or my soul in his pale hands caught.  
Then I lay my self down willingly,  
If he may be gone.


	32. i'll cross a river (nijihimu, qixi)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (BR7) [Prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/25713.html?thread=15874929#cmt15874929):
> 
> "We're placing bets, saying "praise the Lord"  
> Just at eclipse, leave me wanting more  
> Well don't float too far  
> 'Cause I won't live without your constellation  
> Reach out my love  
> 'Cause I can't hold on forever"
> 
> \- Foster The People, Static Space Lover
> 
> fill based off the legend of [qixi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qixi_Festival)

 

—there, in the bright lights over the field,  
i found you:  
in your eye a thousand moons have risen and set  
across the silver river in the sky, your  
dark hair framing its edges.  
i found you.  
  
you told me about the horizon that never ends,  
how it seems so easy now here,  
where you can look at the present as is.  
there’s a whole world out there i will never know,  
a whole world  
(is you.)  
  
you laugh and  
i turn, and the sunlight on your lips are music,  
weaving a story like the stars you threw  
across the sky,  
lovely. i take your hand,  
our callouses from the loom and nature  
are one.  
  
 _and then the skies came crashing down and down and down and i could only watch you with my feet planted on this firm earth and my heart at the tip of my tongue and i could only watch_  
  
i look at night and see the river, though  
roaring ever strong and deep,  
is unable to mask the sigh in the stars.  
as if saying  _you see,_  
our strides will never be quite wide enough  
to cross heaven’s shores—  
  
but,  
  
i heard you sing to the magpies once, a lifetime ago, and now  
this is all i ask: a prayer.  
then a rustle of wings,  
a rattle of bone.  
i leap.  
  
  
  
when i open my eyes,  
i see starlight.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Outside World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11866968) by [Hibari1_san](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hibari1_san/pseuds/Hibari1_san)




End file.
